Day Keene

Born Gunard Hjerstedt in Chicago in 1903, Keene became an actor in repertory theater in the early 1920s. When his actor friends decided to try film, he instead turned to writing, and during the 1930s was a principal writer for the “Little Orphan Annie” radio show, as well as contributing to the pulps. After he moved to the west coast of Florida, he began writing paperback originals in the late 1940s, mostly fast-paced crime stories. An editor suggested that he …