Leigh Brackett Biography and List of Works

American writer of crime novels and short stories. Brackett's major work is in the field science and fantasy fiction (over 200 titles). She also wrote screenplays and television scripts for Checkmate and the Suspense series, and a play, TERROR AT NORTHFIELD, for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Shortly before her death, Brackett scripted THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK for the director and pulp fiction fan George Lucas.

"But it was easy, out of his childhood memories and those strangely incoherent notes, to build a romantic mystery around the lonely prospector's discovery of an unknown world and his subsequent haunted death. Marcia had found it all fascinating and did not doubt for a moment Conway's statement that he was seeking to solve that mystery which, he said, had overshadowed his whole life.
And it had. Waking or sleeping, Rand Conway could not forget Iskar and the Lake of the Gone-Forever.
He watched the misty globe grow larger in the sky ahead, and the beating of his heart was a painful thing. Already his hands ached with longing to close around Iskar and wring from it the power and the wealth that would repay him for all the bitter years of waiting."
(from 'The Lake of Gone-Forever', 1949)

Leigh Brackett was born in Los Angeles, California. Throughout her childhood Brackett was fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and John Carter's Martian Stories - they inspired her first short story 'Martian Quest', which was published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine. She also became a regular contributor to Planet Stories alongside Ray Bradbury.

From 1939 Brackett worked as a free-lance writer. In 1946 she married the science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton (1904-1977), who earned his nickname "world saver" by producing stories in which an imperilled Earth is always saved from destruction in the final chapter. Brackett specialized in planetary romances and sword and sorcery tales, such as THE SWORD OF RHIANNON (1953).

Brackett acknowledged Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett as major influences on her work, a debt evident in her novel, NO GOOD FROM A CORPSE (1944). In her story "So Pale, So Cold, So Fair" (1957) the protagonist cleans up a crooked town - a theme that is repeated in her Howard Hawks movie westerns. In several stories Brackett deals with men who are trying to find renewed meaning in their lives. No Good from a Corpse centres on a hard-boiled detective who is determined to clear an innocent man of the murder of his girlfriend. When Hawks read the book, he decided to get Brackett to write the screenplay of Chandler's The Big Sleep with William Faulkner and Jules Furthman. However, the director was surprised when he learned that Brackett was a woman.

"Howard Hawks sits down with you for a series of chats, giving you all his thoughts on what kind of story he wants, how it ought to go, etc., and then retires to Palm Springs and the golf course, leaving you to come up with a script the best way you can."
('From The Big Sleep to The Long Goodbye' by Leight Brackett, 1973)

In 1946 Brackett ghost-wrote STRANGER AT HOME for the film actor George Sanders. THE TIGER AMONG US (1957) is a story of a citizen-turned-vigilante, who seeks to revenge himself on a gang of juvenile delinquents; it was filmed as 13 West Street starring Alan Ladd.

Brackett began publishing science fiction stories in 1940 and created the Eric John Stark series in the vein of E. R. Burroughs's space stories. The adventures, set in Mars, appeared in an expanded book form, assembled as ERIC JOHN STARK: OUTLAW OF MARS (1982). The Stark stories were reviewed in the 1970s, set this time on the distant world of Skaith and assembled as THE BOOK OF SKAITH (1976).

By the 1950s Brackett concentrates more on interstellar space operas, including THE STARMEN (1952). After 1955 she generally preferred to work in films and tv, notably contributing screenplays for several Howard Hawks productions. Among her co-written screenplays are THE BIG SLEEP (1946), based on Raymond Chandler's famous novel, RIO BRAVO (1959), THE LONG GOODBYE (1973), written at a sad time in Chandler's life, and STAR WARS II (1979), for which she posthumously received a Hugo Award in 1980. Whereas Marlowe is a hero in Hawks's film The Big Sleep, he is portrayed as a real loser in Altman's modernized version, The Long Goodbye - a man out of his time. Instead of being the tough-guy, he does not even win a fight. Brackett's later novels include THE TIGER AMONG US (1946) and FOLLOW THE FREE WIND (1963), which received the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. Brackett's novel AN EYE FOR AN EYE became the basis for the television series Markham.

Brackett died on March 24, 1978. STAR WARS, "EMPIRE STRIKES BACK" STORY BOOK, a summary collection, edited by her husband posthumously appeared in 1980. THE BEST OF LEIGH BRACKETT (1977), confirmed her place among the most versatile crime, mystery, and science fiction writers.

For further reading: Leigh Brackett, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Anne McCaffey: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography by Rosemarie Arbur (1982); Leigh Brackett: American Writer by J.L. Carr (1986); Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton: A Working Bibliography by Gordon Benson Jr. (1986); The Encyclopeadia of Science Fiction,ed. by John Clute and Peter Nicholls (1993)

Screenplays:

• THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST, with John K. Butler, 1945
• CRIME DOCTOR'S MANHUNT, with Eric Taylor, 1946
• THE BIG SLEEP, with William Faulkner and Jules Furthman, 1946
• RIO BRAVO, with Jules Furthman and B.H. McCampbell, 1959
• GOLD OF THE SEVEN SAINTS, with Leonard Freeman, 1961
• HATARI!, with Harry Kurnitz, 1962
• EL DORADO, 1967
• RIO LOBO, with Burton Wohl, 1970
• THE LONG GOODBYE, 1973 (from Raymond Chandler's novel)
• STAR WARS II: THE EMPIRE STIRKES BACK, with Lawrence Kasdan, 1979

NO GOOD FROM A CORPSE, (1944)
THE TIGER AMONG US, (1946)
STRANGER AT HOME, (1947)
SHADOW OVER MARS, (1951)
THE STARMEN, (1952)
THE SWORD OF RHIANNON, (1953)
THE BIG JUMP, (1955)
THE LONG TOMORROW, (1955)
THE TIGER AMONG US, (1957)
AN EYE FOR AN EYE, (1957)
RIO BRAVO, (1959)
FOLLOW THE FREE WIND, (1963)
ALPHA CENTAURI - OR DIE!, (1963)
PEOPLE OF THE TALISMAN, THE SECRET OF SINHARAT, (1964)
THE COMING OF THE TERRANS, (1967)
SILENT PARTNER, (1969)
THE HALFLING AND OTHER STORIES, (1973)
THE GINGER STAR, (1974)
STRANGE ADVENTURES IN OTHER WORLDS, (1975)
THE BOOK OF SKAITH, (1976)
THE HOUNDS OF SKAITH, (1976)
THE REAVERS OF SKAITH, (1976)
THE BEST OF LEIGHT BRACKETT, (1977)
THE BEST OF EDMOND HAMILTON, (1977)
STAR WARS, "EMPIRE STRIKES BACK" STORY BOOK, (1980)
ERIC JOHN STARK, OUTLAW OF MARS, (1982)
THE JEWEL OF BAS with THEVES' CARNIVAL by Karen Haber, (1990)
THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST, with John K. Butler, (1945)
CRIME DOCTOR'S MANHUNT, with Eric Taylor, (1946)
THE BIG SLEEP, with William Faulkner and Jules Furthman, (1946)
RIO BRAVO, with Jules Furthman and B.H. McCampbell, (1959)
GOLD OF THE SEVEN SAINTS, with Leonard Freeman, (1961)
HATARI!, with Harry Kurnitz, (1962)
EL DORADO, (1967)
RIO LOBO, with Burton Wohl, (1970)
THE LONG GOODBYE, (1973)
STAR WARS II: THE EMPIRE STIRKES BACK, with Lawrence Kasdan, (1979)