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He was born in Chicago in 1904, but spent his formative years in West Texas. He lost an eye to barbed wire as a boy, requiring him to wear an eye patch for the rest of his life. He was 14 when he ran away from home and enlisted in the 5th U.S. Cavalry at Fort Bliss, Texas, followed by a year of border patrol duty on the Rio Grande. After army service, Dresser returned to Texas to finish high school. He graduated from Tri-State College in Civil Engineering. He worked for a time as an engineer and as a surveyor, and then started as writer in 1927. Michael Shayne was dreamed up in 1935 while he was vacationing on the Gunnison River in western Colorado. It took four years and 22 rejections before Halliday found a publisher for the first Shayne novel, Dividend on Death (Henry Holt, 1939). The second Shayne book was bought by 20th Century Fox, and actor Lloyd Nolan became Mike on the screen (see About Mike Shayne for more info on selling to the silver screen and Mike Shayne on Film for the Shayne filmography). Shayne also appeared in numerous radio programs throughout the 1940s and had a short-lived TV series in 1960. From 1946 to 1961, Halliday was married to mystery writer Helen McCloy. They were also partners in a literary agency that bore their names, as well as in Torquil Publishing Company, which from 1953 to 1965 published the Shayne books. Prior to this, he had been married to Kathleen Rollins, and their betrothal had provided him with two step daughters. After Halliday gave up writing the Shayne series in 1958 with Murder and the Wanton Bride, it continued, being ghosted by such other writers as Robert Terrall, Ryerson Johnson and Dennis Lynds. One of the ingredients of the formula Halliday had concocted in 1939, and to which he had faithfully adhered during his tenure as Shayne's writer, was a certain timeless quality. This fact allowed Shayne's other writers to bring him well into the 1980s. Halliday also wrote non-series mysteries and westerns under the names Asa Baker, Mathew Blood, Kathryn Culver, Don Davis, Hal Debrett, Anthony Scott and Anderson Wayne. Dresser was a founding member of the Mystery Writers of America, and in
1953 he was given an Edgar Award for his criticism. He lived in Santa Barbara, CA, until his death at the age of 72 on February 4, 1977. Note: More bibliographic information is forthcoming. Information compiled from a variety of sources: The Great Detectives (Little, Brown, 1978), edited by O. Penzler; the back cover of Dividend on Death (Popular Library #98); preface to Halliday's short story, "Human Interest Stuff" (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, #34, 1946); and Allan J. Hubin's Crime Fiction (University of California, San Diego, 1979). | ||||||||||||
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