Rex Stout

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**Rex Stout**
Born:	December 11, 1886 Noblesville, Indiana <tr><th style="text-align: right;">Died:</th><td>October 27, 1975 </td></tr>
Occupation(s):	Writer <tr><th style="text-align: right;">Genre(s):</th><td>Mystery</td></tr>

Rex Stout, full name Rex Todhunter Stout, (December 1, 1886 - October 27, 1975) was an American writer best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe.

1 Biography
2 Writings
3 Works
4 Movie Adaptations
5 Television
6 Unpublished Material
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Biography

Stout was born in Noblesville, Indiana, but shortly after that his Quaker parents John Wallace Stout and Lucetta Elizabeth Todhunter Stout moved their family (nine children in all) to Kansas.

His father was a teacher who encouraged his son to read, and Rex had read the entire Bible twice by the time he was 4 years old. He was the state spelling bee champion at age thirteen. Stout was educated at Topeka High School, Kansas, and later at University of Kansas, Lawrence.

He served from 1906 to 1908 in the U.S. Navy (as a yeoman on President Teddy Roosevelt's official yacht) and then spent about the next four years working at about thirty different jobs (in six states), including cigar store clerk, while he sold poems, stories, and articles to various magazines.

It was not his writing but his invention of a school banking system in about 1916 that gave him enough money to travel in Europe extensively. About 400 U.S. schools adopted his system for keeping track of the money school children saved in accounts at school, and he was paid royalties. Also in 1916, Stout married Fay Kennedy of Topeka, Kansas. They separated in 1933 and Stout married in the same year Pola Hoffman of Vienna, Austria.

Raised with a powerful social conscience, he served on the original board of the American Civil Liberties Union & helped start the radical magazine "New Masses" in the 1920s. During the Great Depression, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the New Deal, & lobbied hard for Franklin Roosevelt to accept a fourth term as president. During WWII, he worked with the advocacy group Friends of Democracy, figured prominently on the Writers War Board, particularly in support of the embryonic United Nations. When the war ended, Stout became active in the United World Federalists.

Stout was active in liberal causes. When the anti-Communist hysteria of the late 1940s & 1950s began, Stout found himself targeted by members of the American Legion. He ignored a subpoena from the House Un-American Activities Committee at the height of the McCarthy era.

Stout was one of many writers on Hoover's private enemies list, as found by journalist Herbert Mitgang when he obtained access to Stout's FBI files for his book Dangerous Dossiers (1988). Stout's FBI file ran 300 pages (though the FBI would only release 183 heavily blacked-out pages to Mitgang). But Stout wasn't afraid, knowing that he could rely on both independent means & the love of the public. In 1965, Stout fought back with his novel The Doorbell Rang, in which Nero Wolfe found himself locked in a duel of wits with the FBI.

In later years Stout alienated many with his hawkish stance on Vietnam, and the contempt for communism in his works was denounced frequently.

[edit] Writings

Stout started his literary career in the 1910s writing for the pulps, publishing romance, adventure, and some borderline detective stories. Rex Stout's first stories appeared among others in All-Story Magazine. He went to sell articles and stories to a variety of magazines. He became a full-time writer in 1927. Stout lost the money he had made as a businessman in 1929.

In Paris in 1929 he wrote his first book, How Like a God, an unusual psychological story written in the second person. After writing three more successful novels, he returned to the U.S. and turned to writing detective fiction. The first one was Fer-de-Lance, which introduced Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin. That novel was first published as a serial in The Saturday Evening Post and then as a book in 1934. After 1938 he focused solely on the mystery field. Stout continued writing the Wolfe series until shortly before his death in 1975, yielding a total of approximately 33 novels and 39 collected novellas or short stories.

Stout wrote prolifically one Nero Wolfe adventure in a year - from the 1940s sometimes several - until the end of his life. During the course of his career Stout mastered a variety of literary forms, including the short story, the novel, and science fiction, among them a pioneering political thriller, The President Vanishes (1934).

During WWII Stout cut back on his detective writing, joined the Fight for Freedom organization, and wrote propaganda. He hosted three weekly radio shows, and coordinated the volunteer services of American writers to help the war effort. After the war Stout returned to writing Nero Wolfe novels, and took up the role of gentleman farmer on his estate at High Meadows in Brewster, north of New York City. He served as President of the Authors Guild and of the Mystery Writers of America. In 1959 he received the Grand Master Award from the latter organization.

Stout was a longtime friend of the British humorist P. G. Wodehouse, writer of the Jeeves novels and short stories. Each was a fan of the other's work, and there are evident parallels between their characters and techniques. Wodehouse contributed the introduction to Rex Stout: A Majesty's Life, the Edgar Award-winning biography by John McAleer.

Nero Wolfe has been featured in film adaptations from the 1930s through the 1980s and was recently the subject of a television series on the A&E Network. An organization of Stout and Wolfe aficionados, The Wolfe Pack, holds events for readers of the series including bimonthly book discussions and an annual Assembly and Banquet in New York, and publishes the biennial "Gazette."

In 1937, Stout created Dol Bonner, a female private detective. She would reappear in several Wolfe books.

[edit] Works

[edit] Nero Wolfe Novels

The Nero Wolfe stories are browsable by title on the Nero Wolfe books page, and most of the individual Nero Wolfe titles are part of the Category:Rex Stout books page (except those written by Robert Goldsborough).

Fer-de-Lance (1934) — The first Nero Wolfe mystery and the basis for the 1936 movie: Meet Nero Wolfe
The League of Frightened Men (1935) — 1937 movie: The League of Frightened Men — An author, Paul Chapin, is on trial for alleged obscenity in his popular novel. Wolfe reads the book, then tells Archie that a potential client has asked Wolfe to arrange to protect him from Chapin. The potential client, along with some Harvard classmates, had taken part in a hazing incident years before, in which Chapin was crippled. Now some of the "League of Frightened Men" — who chipped in to help Chapin after the accident — have begun dying. It is unclear whether that is through malice or by chance, but the surviving members of the League wish to hire Wolfe to find out. (The prominent American man of letters Edmund Wilson wrote in a review in The New Yorker that the book "makes use of a clever psychological idea.") The critic and award-winning mystery writer H.R.F. Keating included it among the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. Archie suggests in the story that Wolfe step out from his apartment. Wolfe answers "I don't know why you persist in trying to badger me into frantic sorties."
The Rubber Band (1936) — Archie books two new clients on the same day, and before the day is over Wolfe has to choose which to keep and there are more than 2 crimes to untangle. The client he keeps in the end is a beautiful young woman, but it's Wolfe who reads her Hungarian poetry, not Archie. In the course of this novel, Lieutenant Rowcliffe, not one of the NYPD's finest (in the opinion not only of Wolfe but Cramer), earns Wolfe's enmity that lasts until the final Wolfe novel in 1975.
The Red Box (1937) — In the midst of a murder investigation, one of the suspects visits Wolfe and begs Wolfe to handle his estate and especially the contents of a certain Red Box. Wolfe is at first concerned about a possible conflict of interest, but feels unable to refuse when the man then dies in his office before telling Wolfe where to find the red box. The police naturally think that he told Wolfe somewhat more before dying. Some people feel it is one of the very best Wolfe stories. Edmund Wilson, however, wrote that it was "somewhat padded," was "full of long episodes that led nowhere," and left him with the feeling that he "had to unpack large crates by swallowing the excelsior in order to find at the bottom a few bent and rusty nails." Readers who remember their French and Latin may find the solution more successfully than Archie.
Too Many Cooks (1938) — Wolfe, a knowledgeable gourmet as well as a detective, attends a meeting of great chefs, The Fifteen Masters, at a resort in West Virginia, and jealousies among them soon lead to death. Wolfe sustains his own injury in the course of finding the culprit but also obtains the secret recipe for saucisse minuit.
Some Buried Caesar (1938) On the way to an agricultural fair north of Manhattan, Wolfe's car runs into a tree, stranding Wolfe and Archie at the home of the owner of a chain of fast-food cafés. A neighbor is later found gored to death; the authorities rule the death an accident but Wolfe deduces that it was murder. Lily Rowan, Archie's longtime girlfriend, makes her first appearance.
Over My Dead Body (1939) This novel and its much later sequel The Black Mountain, have as a background Montenegrin (Yugoslavian) politics<ref>The dissolution of the Turkish and Astro-Hungarian empire created an opporunity for the "South Slavs" (Yugoslavs), previously in separate spheres, to unite in a single country, but over the centuries of separation they had adopted three different religions (Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim) and there was much intrigue both within the region and instigated by outside powers for control of the area.</ref>
Where There's a Will (1940) -
The Silent Speaker (1946)
Too Many Women (1947)
And Be a Villain (1948) British title: More Deaths than One. This novel, The Second Confession, and In the Best Families (see below) were later published together in the book Triple Zeck: A Nero Wolfe Omnibus (1974) and concern Nero Wolfe's struggle with Arnold Zeck, an organized crime kingpin.
The Second Confession (1949)
In the Best Families (1950) (British: Even in the Best Families)
Murder by the Book (1951) — A man asks Wolfe to investigate the murder of his daughter in Van Cortlandt Park, which the police have given up on. Before long it becomes clear that an unpublished novel is a nexus of evil linking the dead woman and several other deaths -- and that the murderer is by no means finished killing.
Prisoner's Base (1952) (British: Out Goes She)
The Golden Spiders (1953) — A squeegie kid, Pete Drossos, tells his neighbor and hero, Nero Wolfe, how he saw a woman being held at gunpoint at a nearby intersection. It isn't long before Pete is murdered and Wolfe investigates his death for a fee of $4.35 that Pete had managed to save from washing windshields.
The Black Mountain (1954) — Wolfe's best friend Marko Vukcic is murdered by a Yugoslavian agent who has already made his escape from New York. Wolfe and Archie are therefore obliged to clandestinely go to Yugoslavia in order to avenge his death — which means bringing the killer back to American justice.
Before Midnight (1955) — A national literary contest to promote a new brand of perfume leads to murder and more.
Might As Well Be Dead (1956) — Wolfe is hired to find a missing person, who soon turns up — under a new name — as a newly convicted murderer in a sensational crime.
If Death Ever Slept (1957)
Champagne for One (1958)
Plot It Yourself (1959) (British: Murder in Style)
Too Many Clients (1960)
The Final Deduction (1961) — In a departure from most other Wolfe books, Wolfe is initially hired to solve a kidnapping, but deaths soon crop up.
Gambit (1962)
The Mother Hunt (1963)
A Right To Die (1964)
The Doorbell Rang (1965) — 1977 movie (pilot for TV series): Nero Wolfe
Death of a Doxy (1966) — Orrie Cather, one of Wolfe's operatives, has been secretly seeing a wealthy man's kept mistress at her secret lovenest, but is arrested when she turns up dead.
The Father Hunt (1968)
Death of a Dude (1969)
Please Pass the Guilt (1973)
Three Trumps (1973)
A Family Affair (1975) — last Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout

[edit] Collections of Nero Wolfe Short Stories

Black Orchids (1942) Book version of two novellas previously published separately:
- Black Orchids (1942)
- Cordially Invited to Meet Death (1942)

Not Quite Dead Enough (1944) Book version of two novellas previously published separately:
- Not Quite Dead Enough (1942)
- Booby Trap (1944)

Trouble in Triplicate (1949)
- Before I Die (1947)
- Help Wanted, Male (1945)
- Instead of Evidence (1946)

Three Doors to Death (1950) Viking Press edition of three Wolfe stories that had previously appeared in the The American Magazine:
- Man Alive (1947)
- Omit Flowers (1948)
- Door to Death (1949) (appearing in the Viking volume under the title Door to Death)

Curtains for Three (1951)
- Bullet for One (1948)
- Disguise for Murder (1950)
- The Gun with Wings (1949)

Triple Jeopardy (1952)
- The Cop-Killer (1951)
- Home to Roost (1952)
- The Squirt and the Monkey (1951)

Three Men Out (1954)
- Invitation to Murder (1942)
- This Won’t Kill You (1952)
- The Zero Clue (1953)

Three Witnesses (1956)
- Die Like a Dog (1954)
- The Next Witness (1955)
- When a Man Murders (1954)

Three for the Chair (1957) A collection of three novellas each published separately earlier:
- Immune to Murder (1955)
- Too Many Detectives (1956)
- A Window for Death (1956)

And Four to Go (1958) — A collection of four novellas, the first three of which are connected with a holiday. One involves Wolfe leaving home — without Archie even knowing about it until long after it has happened.
And Four To Go (1958)
- Christmas Party (1957)
- Easter Parade (1957)
- Fourth of July Picnic (1957)
- Murder Is No Joke (1958)

Three at Wolfe’s Door (1960)
- Method Three for Murder (1960)
- Poison a la Carte (1960)
- The Rodeo Murder (1960)

Homicide Trinity (1962)
- Counterfeit for Murder (1959)
- Death of a Demon (1961)
- Eeny Meeny Murder Mo (1962)

Trio for Blunt Instruments (1964)
- Kill Now – Pay Later (1961)
- Murder Is Corny (1962)
- Blood Will Tell (1963)

Death Times Three (1985) Posthumous collection reprinting the 1940 novella "Bitter End" and rewritten versions of two other stories.
- Bitter End (1940)
- Frame-Up for Murder (1958)
- Assault on a Brownstone [1959]

[edit] Other Works

HER FORBIDDEN KNIGHT (1913) - in All-Story Magazine
Under the Andes (1914) - Stout describes an underground lost world of dwarf Incas in All-Story Magazine
A PRIZE FOR THE PRINCES, 1914
THE GREAT LEGEND, 1916
HOW LIKE A GOD, 1929
SEED ON THE WIND, 1930
GOLDEN REMEDY, 1931
Forest Fire (1933)
The President Vanishes (1934) - The disappearance of the US President causes a near-future crisis
The Hand in the Glove (1937) - featuring Dol Bonner
Red Threads (1939) - featuring Inspector Cramer in a supporting role
Double for Death (1939) - featuring Tecumseh Fox
The Mountain Cat Murders (1939)
Bad for Business (1940) - featuring Tecumseh Fox
The Broken Vase (1941) - featuring Tecumseh Fox
The Sound of Murder (1941) - featuring Alphabet Hicks
THE ILLUSTRIOUS DUNDERHEADS, 1942 (ed.)
RUE MORGUE No. 1, 1946 (ed.)
EAT, DRINK, AND BE BURIED, 1956 / FOR TOMORROW WE DIE, 1958
THE NERO WOLFE COOK BOOK, 1973 (with others)
Corsage (1977)

[edit] Movie Adaptations

The Nero Wolfe mysteries inspired two feature films in the 1930s. Meet Nero Wolfe (1936) was an adaptation of the first Wolfe novel, "Fer-de-Lance," and starred Edward Arnold as Wolfe and Lionel Stander as Archie Goodwin. The League of Frightened Men (1937), an adaptation of the second Wolfe novel, starred Walter Connolly as Wolfe, with Stander repeating his role as Goodwin. Reviews of these two movies were generally lukewarm, and Rex Stout disliked the way his characters were portrayed. For the rest of his life, he declined to authorize any more Hollywood adaptations.

Meet Nero Wolfe (1936); starring Edward Arnold as Wolfe and Lionel Stander as Archie Goodwin
The League of Frightened Men (1937); starring Walter Connolly as Wolfe, with Stander repeating his role as Goodwin
The Doorbell Rang (1972); dir. by Frank Gilroy, starring Thayer David

[edit] Television

Rex Stout, disappointed with the Nero Wolfe movies of the 1930s and unimpressed with television in general, vetoed Nero Wolfe film and TV projects in America until his death in 1975. In 1977, Thayer David, Tom Mason, and Brooke Adams starred in a telemovie based on "The Doorbell Rang." Intended as the pilot episode for a television series that did not happen, it was held back for release until 1979 due to the death of Thayer David shortly after filming.

In 1981, William Conrad played Wolfe and Lee Horsley played Goodwin in a short-lived television series.

In 2001, Maury Chaykin (as Wolfe) and Timothy Hutton (as Archie) starred in The Golden Spiders, an A&E telemovie adaptation of the 1953 story of the same name. This led to a series, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, which played for two seasons before being canceled. Both seasons are available on DVD as two boxed sets (the telemovie bundled with the second).

Hutton had a strong creative hand in the A&E series, producing and directing some episodes. Many fans consider the series the most accurate adaptation of the Wolfe stories ever seen on American television. The episodes followed the plots of the stories closely, but unlike previous Wolfe shows, they were not updated to contemporary times. They were colorful period pieces, set in a somewhat vague past (the 1940s to the early '60s). Whether Rex Stout would have liked this approach or not, the production values were high. Media critics and fans of the books generally had good things to say about the show, but people who had not read the books, especially viewers who knew Wolfe only through the William Conrad series, responded less favorably.

One distinguishing feature of the series was the use of an ensemble cast to play non-recurring characters. The same actor who played the murder victim in one episode might play the murderer in another. Sometimes an actor, using a wig or other such disguise, would play two characters in one episode. Kari Matchett had a recurring role as Archie Goodwin's sometime girlfriend Lily Rowan while frequently playing other characters as well. This was intended to mimic the experience of watching a play put on by a repertory company, as might have been done in the early 20th century.

Between 1969 and 1971, the Italian network RAI broadcast a successful series of black and white telemovies starring Tino Buazzelli (Nero Wolfe), Paolo Ferrari (Archie Goodwin), Pupo De Luca (Fritz Brenner) and Renzo Palmer (Inspector Cramer). Ten episodes of this series are currently (2004) available on DVD.

The German-made mini-series of Too Many Cooks (Zu viele Köche, 1961) has some information available on the Internet Movie database: [1]. Heinz Klevenow starred as Nero Wolfe and Joachim Fuchsberger as Archie Goodwin.

The Russian Wolfe TV movies were made in 2001-2002. The teleplay for the series was written by Vladimir Valutskiy who had previously written the Russian Sherlock Holmes TV series (around 1980). The IMDb link for more information: [2]. Nero Wolfe is played by Donatas Banionis and Archie Goodwin by Sergei Zhigunov.