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Stephen Gould Fisher (29 August 1913 – 27 March 2010) was an American author best known for his pulp stories, novels and screenplays. He is one of the few pulp authors to go on to enjoy success as both an author in “slick” magazines, Saturday Evening Post for example, and as an in demand writer in Hollywood.

Early Life
Steve Fisher was born 29 August 1913, in Marine City, Michigan. He was raised in Los Angeles, California, where he attended Oneonta Military Academy until running away to join the Navy at the age of sixteen. Fisher spent four years in the Navy, during which time he wrote prolifically, selling stories to U.S. Navy and Our Navy.

After Fisher’s discharge from the Navy, he settled in Greenwich Village, New York, where he decided to pursue writing as a career. The first few months proved difficult. Fisher could not sell a story and suffered eviction from two apartments, and once had his electricity shut off. In March 1934, however, he would publish his first story, “Hell’s Scoop,” in Sure-Fire Detective Magazine, beginning a career of considerable literary success.

Pulp Years
Fisher published extensively in pulps throughout the 1930s, ‘40s and into the ‘50s. Magazines that featured his stories include Spicy Mystery Stories, Thrilling Detective, True Gang Life, Detective Fiction Weekly, The Shadow, New Mystery Adventures, Underground Detective, The Mysterious Fu Wang, Phantom Detective, Ace Detective, Saucy Romantic Adventures, Mystery Adventure, Detective Tales, The Whisperer, Headquarters Detective, Hardboiled, Doc Savage, Feds, Federal Agent, Popular Detective, Clues, Detective Romances, Crime Busters, Pocket Detective and Detective Story Magazine. Some of Fisher’s most significant stories, however, would be published in Black Mask, the seminal detective magazine. Famous Mask editor Joe Shaw rejected early submissions by Fisher, but under the editor of Fanny Ellsworth, Fisher would help create a more emotional, psychological crime story, different from his hard-boiled Mask predecessors. Fisher stated, “[My] subjective style, mood and approach to a story was the antithesis of [a] Roger Torrey who, like Hammett, wrote objectively, with crisp, cold precision”. “The more emotionally charged style caught on and was featured in a number of detective pulps,” helping to establish a place for similar authors, such as Fisher’s friend Cornell Woolrich. In total Fisher would publish nine stories in Black Mask: “Death of a Dummy,” “Flight to Paris,” “Hollywood Party,” “Jake and Jill,” “Latitude Unknown,” “Murder at Eight,” “No Gentleman Strangles His Wife,” “Wait for Me,” “You’ll Always Remember Me,”. Fisher would also break into slick magazines during this period, a rare feat for a pulp writer. His stories saw simultaneous publication in pulps and in slicks such as Liberty, Collier’s, The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan and American Magazine to name a few. He would also publish under the sir names Gould and Lane, and would go on to publish hundreds of stories in pulp and slick magazines.

Later Life
Struggling financially, Fisher moved to Paris in 1939 to work and live more affordably. After only six month, his agent, H. N. Swanson, sold the stories “If You Break My Heart” and “Shore Leave” to Hollywood for film adaptation. Fisher returned to Hollywood where he would work for much of the remainder of his life as a screenwriter. Fisher wrote the screenplays for such notable films noir as Dead Reckoning and The Lady in the Lake. He would also spent time writing novels, most notably I Wake Up Screaming. During the 1970s, Fisher experienced great success writing for television, including such shows as Starsky & Hutch, McMillan & Wife and Barnaby Jones. He died on March 27, 1980 at his home in Canoga Park, Los Angeles. He was 66 years old.

Selected Bibliography

 * Spend the Night (1935)
 * Satan’s Angel (1935)
 * Murder of the Pigboat Skipper (1937)
 * The Night Before Murder (1939)
 * Homicide Johnny (1940)
 * I Wake Up Screaming (1941)
 * Destroyer (1941)
 * Destination Tokyo (1943)
 * Water Kill (1946)
 * No House Limit: A Novel of Las Vegas (1958)
 * The Big Dream (1970)
 * The Hell-Black Night (1970)

Selected Scripts

 * To the Shores of Tripoli (1942)
 * Berlin Correspondent (1942)
 * Johnny Angel (1945)
 * Lady in the Lake (1946)
 * Dead Reckoning (1947)
 * Song of the Thin Man (1947)
 * The Hunted (1947)
 * I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes (1948)
 * A Lady Without Passport (1950)
 * City That Never Sleeps (1953)
 * Hell’s Half Acre (1954)