Robert Leslie Bellem
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Robert Leslie Bellem

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His friend's called him Leslie, but the pulp editors of the 40s insisted he publish under his first name, so that no one thought he was a woman. Robert Leslie Bellem wrote over 3000 pulp stories, with Detective DanTurner starring in at least 300 of them, along with 60 or 70 comic book stories and a few novels. In his prime, Bellem was pumping out a million words annually, and selling every one to pulp magazines. Before becoming a writer he worked in Los Angeles as a newspaper reporter, radio announcer and film extra. After the demise of the pulps, Bellem switched to writing for television, including a number of scripts for The Lone Ranger, The Adventures of Superman (1950s version), The original Perry Mason show, 77 Sunset Strip and other shows. Bellem wrote in a variety of genres for many pulp magazines, particularly those owned by Culture Publications such as Spicy Detective, Spicy Adventure, Spicy Western and Spicy Mystery (one of the weird menace pulps). The word "spicy" in the titles of these magazines was meant to indicate sexual content, although this was very tame compared with current standards. Bellem's most famous creation was the hardboiled detective Dan Turner, whose stories were written in the first person in a racy, slangy style that made them extremely popular. Set against the background of the Hollywood film industry (of which Bellem had personal knowledge), the Dan Turner stories appeared first in the pages of Spicy Detective (subsequently retitled Speed Detective) and later in his "own" magazine, Hollywood Detective, which ran from January 1942 to October 1950. Noir House recently re-introduced Dan Turner to modern audiences through hardboiled mash-ups merging pulp fiction with pop culture. In the debut Kindle book, a Hollywood starlit turns to Detective Dan Turner to protect her from a blackmailer, but Dan's already on the blackmailer's payroll. It's takes the spirit of Marilyn Monroe to put Dan on the straight and narrow and save the Girl with the Donkey Tattoo.
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