John McPartland

John Donald McPartland (1911–1958) was a writer specializing in pulp fiction crime whose career was ended by an early death at age 47. In addition to his pulp work, he is known for his more standard novel, No Down Payment, which was later made into the movie of the same title, directed by Martin Ritt and starring Joanne Woodward and Tony Randall, among others.

McPartland was born April 13, 1911 in Chicago. He was educated as an engineer. In 1943, during World War II, he was inducted into the U.S. Army. After the war, his first book, Sex in Our Changing World, was published in 1947 to moderate success, and he joined Life Magazine as a staff writer. Later as an Army reservist, he was called back during the Korean War and served with the pacific division of the Stars and Stripes newspaper where he was a staff writer. On his return from Asia, McPartland settled in California and began to write on a regular basis, though he retained some desire to be an engineer. In addition to his novels, he wrote a handful of screenplays for Hollywood. On September 14, 1958, in Monterey, California, McParland suffered a heart attack and died. He was 47.

During the settlement of his estate, McPartland's personal life became national news. It was revealed during estate proceedings that he had a legal wife and son in Mill Valley, California, while at the same time, a mistress in Monterey who had borne him five children, as who as Mrs. Eleanor McPartland, was named the city's "Mother of the Year" in 1956. Additionally, a daughter from an earlier marriage in Chicago was later attached to the estate.

Most of McPartland's books were published as Fawcett Gold Medal paperback originals. His novels, aside from No Down Payment, fall under the hard-boiled pulp category. The settings of his books were usually the seamy underworld of urban and suburban America, and featured plots involving romantic intrigue, international espionage, extortion, drug trafficking and crime syndicates. Japan was the backdrop for three of his books, of which two were set during the period of the post-WWII Allied occupation, a setting McPartland seemed to have experienced firsthand, particularly the sections of "sleazy, vice-ridden, post-Occupation Tokyo."

McPartland also wrote four Hollywood screenplays that become movies, one of which was taken from his own work, The Wild Party. Three of his novels have been adapted to the screen: No Down Payment in 1957; the The Kingdom of Johnny Cool which became the 1963 movie Johnny Cool, starring Elizabeth Montgomery and Henry Silva; and the aforementioned The Wild Party, which was brought to the screen in the 1956 movie of the same title, starring Anthony Quinn.

Many of McPartland's pulp novels have been reprinted since their initial publication in the 1950s; some are currently in print, including Big Red's Daughter and Tokyo Doll, both reissued by Black Curtain Press in 2013.

Cover of "No Down Payment"(1957)

Pulp Fiction

• Love Me Now (1952)
• Big Red's Daughter (1953)
• Tokyo Doll (1953)
• Affair in Tokyo (1954)
• Face of Evil (1954)
• The Wild Party (1956)
• Danger for Breakfast (1956)
• I'll See You in Hell (1956)
• Ripe Fruit (1958)
• The Kingdom of Johnny Cool (1959)
• The Last Night (1959)

Fiction

• No Down Payment (Simon & Schuster, 1957)

Non-Fiction

• Sex in Our Changing World (Rinehart & Co., 1947)

Screenplays

• The Wild Party (1956)
• No Time to be Young (1957)
• Street of Sinners (1957)
• The Lost Missile (1958)