Horace McCoy Biography and List of Works

American mystery writer in the "hard-boiled" vein, who worked in Hollywood after 1931 as a script writer. However, McCoy's best known novel is THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? (1935), which was made into a movie in 1969, directed by Sydney Pollack. The story depicted a tragedy during a marathon dance contest in the early twenties. Gloria, one of the participants, looks forward to death as a release from the misery of life, and her partner Robert, overcome by desperation, grants her wish.

"There can only be one winner, folks, but isn't that the American way?"
(Gig Young in the film They Shoot Horses, Don't They?)

Horace McCoy was born in Pegram, Tennessee (in some sources Nashville) to parents whom he described as 'book-rich and money-poor.' He was educated in schools in Nashville. At the age of 16 he left school, and worked as a mechanic, travelling salesman, and cab driver. During World War I McCoy served in the United States Army Air Corps. He flew several missions behind enemy lines as a bombardier and reconnaissance photographer. He was wounded and received the Croix de Gurre.

From 1919 to 1930 he worked as a sports editor for the Dallas Journal. McCoy was also co-founder of Dallas Little Theatre. In the late 1920's he started to get his short stories published in such magazines as Detective-Dragnet and Detective Action Stories. In 1927 Black Mask published the first of 17 McCoy stories, written in a Hemingway-esque terse style. During the Depression McCoy was out-of-work and tried to become an actor in Hollywood. These years gave material for his first novel They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, which was praised by Sartre and de Beauvoir as the breakthrough existentialist novel to come out of America.

After his debut as novelist, McCoy wrote NO POCKETS IN A SHROUD (1937), in which a tough-guy crusading journalist wages a lone war against corruption. The protagonist, Mike Dolan, is after a clean city and a clean conscience - no matter what the costs. He launches a magazine that tells the stories other papers will not print. Dolan goes after a murderous abortionist and a KKK-like racist group, loses the girl he loves, marries a senator's daughter, and meets his fate in a dark alley.

"'For God's sake, don't keep telling me I'm a reformer,' Dolan said angrily. 'People can do anything they like right out in the middle of the street for all I care. That's unimportant. But what is important is printing some news about these political highbinders and about the big-time thieves... why, even the goddam Governor of this state is crooked, and you know it.'"
(from No Pockets in a Shroud)

In KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE (1948) the amoral protagonist escapes from a prison farm, and gets involved with dangerous women, corrupt establishment, crooked cops and layers. Under the classical gangster story McCoy hides an allegory about the morally degraded film industry. The story inspired a James Cagney film in 1950.

From 1931 McCoy worked in Hollywood, writing westerns, crime melodramas, and other films. THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE (1936) was the first outdoor film to be shot in three-colour Technicolor. The story was first filmed by Cecil B. De Mille in 1916. Henry Fonda and Nigel Bruce were the feuding Blue Ridge Mountaineers and Fred McMurray was the railway engineer. GENTLEMAN JIM (1942) was about a bank clerk, James J. Corbett, who became one of the famous figures in boxing. BAD FOR EACH OTHER (1953), directed by Irving Rapper, was about an ex-army doctor (Charlton Heston) who scorns his home town for high society. He is attracted to a mine-owners daughter, but a mine disaster makes him choose his side. McCoy wrote the screenplay with the best selling novelist Irving Wallace. THE LUSTY MEN (1952), directed by Nicholas Ray, was a semi-documentary drama about a pair of rider friends on a rodeo tour. Robert Mitchum wants to settle down, but his friend, Arthur Kennedy, wants to continue in the ring. Susan Hayward domesticated the caravan life-style. In the minor Western MONTANA BELLE (1952) Jane Russell played Belle Star. The film was completed several years before its release by Republic and bought from that company by Howard Hughes, who had Russell under contract, for RKO.

In Hollywood McCoy worked with such major directors as Henry Hathaway, Raoul Walsh, and Nicholas Ray, and with lesser known professionals. James Hogan directed TEXAS RANGERS0 RIDE AGAIN (1940), about Modern Rangers who capture cattle rustlers. WILD GEESE CALLING (1941) was also a Western, directed by John Brahm, and starring Joan Bennett and Henry Fonda. HUNTED MEN (1938) was a competent second feature, directed by Louis King. In the story a racketeer (Lloyd Nolan) kills a doublecrosser, and uses a private home as a hideout. He is outwitted by the head of the house and ultimately sacrifices himself. However, the best film based on McCoy's text, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, was made fourteen years after the author's death. McCoy died of a heart attack on December 15, 1955.

They Shoot Horses, Don't They (1969), dir. by Sydney Pollack. - To catch the Depression mood, Pollack showed his cast movies from the 1930s. Gig Young's part, as Rocky the announcer, had been written for Lionel Strander, but Young won an Academy Award as best supporting actor. It marked the peak of a career that ended in tragedy when he murdered his fifth wife and shot himself in 1978. Pollack filmed the sixty-four day dance marathon largely in script sequences at Lick Pier, where the marathon set was an exact replica of the old Aragon Ballroom at Ocean Park. Jane Fonda's performance is remarkable.

For further reading: The Life and Writings of Horace McCoy by John Thomas Stuark, unpublished dissertation, Los Angeles, University of California (1976); Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers, ed. by John M. Reilly (1985); Horace McCoy by Mark Royden Winchell (paperback 1982) - See also 'hard-boiled' writers: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Jonathan Latimer, Mickey Spillane

THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY, (1935)