Alan Le May

He wrote the original source novel for Along Came Jones (1945; starring Gary Cooper and Loretta Young), as well as a score of other screenplays and an assortment of other novels and short stories. Le May wrote and directed High Lonesome (1950) starring John Drew Barrymore and Chill Wills and featuring Jack Elam. Le May also wrote and produced (but did not direct) Quebec (1951), also starring John Drew Barrymore.

• Name — Alan Le May • Born — 3 June 1899 • Birthplace — Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S. • Died — 27 April 1964 • Occupation — Writer (novelist) • Period — 20th century • Genre — Western fiction

He was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to John and Maude Brown Le May. His father was a public school teacher and his maternal grandfather (Daniel L. Brown Sr.) and uncle (Daniel L. Brown Jr.) were both lawyers. He first lived with his parents and uncle at his grandparents home at 3229 North Illinois Street in Indianapolis. He moved with his family, including his sister Elizabeth, to Aurora, Illinois, as a teenager in the 1910s. He attended Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, in 1916. In 1918 he registered for the World War I draft in Aurora, and then enlisted and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. While attending the University of Chicago, where he graduated in 1922 with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree, he joined the Illinois National Guard. He was promoted to First Lieutenant Field Artillery for the Illinois National Guard in 1923. He published his first novel, Painted Ponies, in 1927 (about the Cheyenne and the U. S. Cavalry horse soldiers).

• Painted Ponies (1927) • Old Father of Waters (1928) • Pelican Coast (1929) • One Of Us Is A Murderer (1930) • Gunsight Trail (1931) • Bug Eye (1931) • Winter Range (1932) • Cattle Kingdom (1933) • Thunder in the Dust (1934) – Adapted in The Sundowners, AKA Thunder in the Dust (1950), directed by George Templeton • The Smoky Years (1935) • Wild Justice (1935) • Empire for a Lady (1937) • The Story of Dr. Wassell (1943) • Useless Cowboy (1944) – Adapted in Along Came Jones (1945), directed by Stuart Heisler • Winter Range (1948) • The Searchers (1954) – Adapted in The Searchers (1956), directed by John Ford • The Unforgiven, AKA Kiowa Moon (1957) – Adapted in The Unforgiven (1960), directed by John Huston • By Dim and Flaring Lamps (1962)

Uncollected short stories. • "Circles in the Sky" (1919) • "Out of the Swamp" (1920) • "Ghost Lanterns" (1922) • "Hullabaloo" (1922) • "The Brass Dolphin" (1922) • "Needin' Help Bad" (1924) • "His Better Idea" (1925) • "Mustang Breed" (1925) • "The Contest Man" (1925) • "The Legacy Mule" (1925) • "Baldy at the Brink" (1926) • "Long Bob from 'Rapahoe" (1926) • "Facts an' Figgers on Cayuses" (1927) • "Old Father of Waters" (1927) • "Painted Ponies" (1927) • "The Dedwood Coach Brakes Down" (1927) • Bug Eye series: • "Bug Eye Neerly Starves" (1927) • "Bug Eye Loses Hisself" (1927) • "Bug Eye Gets Hisself in Jale" (1928) • "Bug Eye Among the Soo" (1928) • "Hank Joins the Vijiluntys" (1928) • "Hank's Other Pardner" (1928) • "Hank Arrives Back Ware He Cum Frum" (1929) • "Are You There, Bug Eye?" (1928) • "Bug Eye's Wandering Partner" (1928) • "The Cross Eyed Bull" (1928) • "Help, Bug Eye—I Own the Town" (1929) • "Cowboys Will Be Cowboys" (1930) • "Gambler's Suicide" (1930) • "Horse Laugh" (1930) • "One of Us Is a Murderer" (1930) • "The Creeping Cloud" (1930) • "The Jungle Terror" (1930) • "The Short Short Story" (1930) • "To Save a Girl" (1930) • "Under Fire" (1930) • "A Neat, Quick Case" (1931) • "Gunsight Trail" (1931) • "The Jungle of the Gods" (1931) • "A romance of the rodeos" (1932) • "A Short Short Story" (1932, with Lyman Bryson) • "Bronc-Fighter's Secret" (1932) • "Eyes of Doom" (1932, with Lyman Bryson) • "Have One on Me" (1932) • "A Passage to Rangoon" (1933) • "Cold Trails" (1933) • "Fated Trails" (1933) • "They Sometimes Come Back" (1933) • "After the Hounds" (1934) • "Out of the Whirlpool" (1934) • "Death on the Rimrock" (1935) • "Deepwater Island" (1935) • "Fight Back or Die" (1935) • "Horses" (1935) • "Needin' Some Help" (1935) • "Pardners" (1935) • "The Blessed Mule" (1935) • "A Cowboy in San Juan" (1936) • "Dark Tropic Sea" (1936) • "Death Rides the Border" (1936) • "From an Old Timer in the Black Hills" (1936) • "Iron Paws" (1936) • "Outlaw Cavalcade" (1936) • "The Man from Arapahoe" (1936) • "Ghost at His Shoulder" (1937) • "Night by a Wagon Trail" (1937) • "A Short Short Story" (1938) • "Impersonation" (1938) • "Pinto York" (1938) • "Uncertain Wings" (1938) • "Aces Is His Hair" (1939) • "Interrupted Take-Off" (1939) • "Hell For Breakfast" (1947) • "Wild Justice" (1948) • "The Avenging Texans" (1954) • "Missing in Action" (1956)

• Illustration — John Wayne in The Searchers (1956) • North West Mounted Police (1940), directed by Cecil B. DeMille • Reap the Wild Wind (1942), directed by Cecil B. DeMille • The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944), directed by Cecil B. DeMille • The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), directed by Irving Rapper • Trailin' West (1944), directed by George Templeton • Story of G.I. Joe (1945), directed by William Wellman. Uncredited • San Antonio (1945), directed by David Butler and, uncredited, Robert Florey and Raoul Walsh • Cheyenne (1947), directed by Raoul Walsh • Gunfighters (1947), directed by George Waggner • Tap Roots (1948), directed by George Marshall • The Walking Hills (1949), directed by John Sturges • The Sundowners, a.k.a. Thunder in the Dust (1950), directed by George Templeton • High Lonesome (1950), directed by Alan Le May • Rocky Mountain (1950), directed by William Keighley • Quebec (1951), directed by George Templeton • I Dream of Jeanie, a.k.a. I Dream of Jeanie (with the Light Brown Hair) (1952), directed by Allan Dwan • Blackbeard the Pirate (1952), directed by Raoul Walsh • Flight Nurse, a.k.a. Angels Take Over, a.k.a. Angels over Korea (1953), directed by Allan Dwan • The Vanishing American (1955), directed by Joseph Kane