Richard O'Connor
Richard O'Connor was an American writer and journalist born on March 10, 1915, in LaPorte, Indiana. He initially pursued a brief acting career on Broadway before transitioning to journalism, where he worked for various newspapers across major cities including Chicago, New Orleans, and New York from 1936 to 1957. O'Connor's significant contributions to literature began with biographies, with his first major work focusing on Thomas, a military figure from the Civil War. Throughout his career, he authored around twenty adult biographies, often highlighting military leaders, notable figures from the American West, and influential personalities in politics and literature.
In addition to adult biographies, O'Connor expanded his writing to include works for young adults and nonfiction histories. He frequently used pseudonyms, such as John Burke for some biographies and Frank Archer for mystery novels, to manage conflicts of interest with various publishers. His later years were spent in Ellsworth, Maine, where he continued to write until his passing on February 15, 1975. O'Connor's legacy includes a rich collection of biographies and histories that reflect diverse aspects of American culture and history.
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Richard O'Connor
Author
- Born: March 10, 1915
- Birthplace: LaPorte, Indiana
- Died: February 15, 1975
- Place of death: Ellsworth, Maine
Biography
Richard O’Connor was born March 10, 1915, in LaPorte, Indiana, the son of Richard Edward and Hilda Waldschmidt O’Connor. He attended schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and married Olga Derby in 1939. O’Connor worked briefly as an actor, appearing in 1940 on Broadway at the Provincetown Playhouse in the One-Act Variety Theater productions of According to Law and What D’You Call It. His primary occupation two decades, however, was as a journalist, serving as a reporter at newspapers in Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, and New York between 1936 and 1957.
For the last third of his life, O’Connor concentrated on writing biographies, histories, mysteries, and nonfiction for juveniles. His first full-length work was the biography Thomas: Rock of Chickamauga. He subsequently published some twenty biographies for adults. His usual subjects were military leaders (Hood: Cavalier General, Sheridan: The Inevitable, and Black Jack Pershing), figures from the American West (Bat Masterson—which served as the basis for the 1958-1961 television series of the same name—Wild Bill Hickok, and Pat Garrett: A Biography of the Famous Marshal and the Killer of Billy the Kid), industrial and political personalities (Gould’s Millions and The First Hurrah: A Biography of Alfred E. Smith), literary greats (Jack London: A Biography, Bret Harte: A Biography, and O. Henry: The Legendary Life of William S. Porter), and interesting or controversial characters (The Lost Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed, written with Dale L. Walker, and John Lloyd Stephens: Explorer of Lost Worlds).
Beginning in the mid-1950’s, O’Connor alternated between biography and history, producing fifteen detailed examinations of the past, including High Jinks on the Klondike, Down to Eternity: How the Poor Edwardian and His World Died with the Titanic, Johnstown the Day the Dam Broke, and The Irish: A Portrait of a People. In the 1960’s and early 1970’s, O’Connor added biographies for young adults to his repertoire (Young Bat Masterson, The Common Sense of Tom Paine, and Ernest Hemingway). He also produced several adult biographies as John Burke—including Winged Legend: The Story of Amelia Earhart and Duet in Diamonds: The Flamboyant Saga of Lillian Russell and Diamond Jim Brady in America’s Gilded Age—probably resorting to a pseudonym to avoid conflicts of interest among the various publishers for whom he wrote.
O’Connor likewise employed pen names for his few fictional efforts in the mid- 1960’s. He wrote as Frank Archer for his mystery series concerning San Francisco police detectives Joe Delaney and Eddie Cormack (including The Malabang Pearl and The Widow Watchers). For his three-book series of international spy thrillers (Counterstroke, Double Defector, and The Waiting Game), O’Connor wrote as Patrick Wayland.
Late in life, Richard O’Connor lived in Ellsworth, Maine. He died there on February 15, 1975. His widow donated his papers to the Folger Library at the University of Maine.