Work on the Louis L'Amour biography continues at its maddeningly slow pace. Information drifts in, sometimes proving, sometimes disproving, stories Louis told or ideas that I have had about what happened at certain times.
I want to extend my thanks to all the people who have written in with information for the book, and I want to apologize in advance because I will no longer be able to answer all of the wonderful fan mail that has come to me through the Biography Project's P. O. box.
My staff and I are swamped with research and simply cannot keep up with all the non-biography fan letters that keep coming in. We have decided that from now on we can respond only to those of you who write in about a subject that directly pertains to the biography itself. I regret this, I appreciate everyone's interest, but I'm not making enough progress on the story of my father's life and I must focus on only the things that help me get that into print.
The next book (which will be out in spring of 2000) will be Off the Mangrove Coast. It will contain the same eclectic mixture of stories as this collection. However, there will be a few that are like those stories in the Pondering collection, tales drawn from Louis's life or the lives of people that he knew. There will still be a few more westerns, more crime, and more sports stories to come.
Below are the names of the people whom I would like to contact. If you find your name on the list, I would be very grateful if you would write to me. Some of these people may have known Louis as Duke? LaMoore or Michael Micky? Moore, since Louis occasionally used those names. Many of the people on this list may have died. If you are a family member (or were a very good friend) of anyone on the list who has passed away, I would like to hear from you, too. Some of the names I have marked with an asterisk. If there is anyone out there who knows anything at all about these people, I would like to hear it.
The address to write to is:
Louis L'Amour Biography Project P. O. Box 41183
Pasadena, CA 91114-9183
Because of the many demands on our time, we will no longer be responding to fan mail sent to this address ... it is for correspondence regarding biography information only!
Marian Payne Married a guy named Duane. Louis knew her in Oklahoma in the mid- to late 1930s. She moved to New York for a while; she may have lived in Wichita at some point.
Chaplain Phillips Louis first met him at Fort Sill, then again in Paris at the Place de Saint Augustine Officers'
Mess. The first meeting was in 1942, the second in 1945.
Anne Mary Bentley Friend of Louis's from Oklahoma in the 1930s. Possibly a musician of some sort. Lived in Denver for a time.
Pete Boering* Born in the late 1890s. Came from Amsterdam, Holland. His father may have been a ship's captain.
Betty Brown Woman Louis corresponded with extensively while in Choctaw, Oklahoma, in the late 1930s.
Later she moved to New York.
Jacques Chambrun* Louis's agent from the late 1930s through the late 1950s.
Des His first name. Chambrun's assistant in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
Joe Friscia* Joined Hagenbeck & Wallace circus in Phoenix in the mid-1920s. Rode freights across Texas and spent a couple of nights in the Star of Hope mission in Houston. May have been from Boston.
Harry Shorty? Warren* Shipmate of Louis's in the mid-1920s. Harry may have been an Australian.
Joe Hollinger* Louis met him while with Hagenbeck Sc Wallace circus, where he ran the privilege car. A couple of months later he shipped out with Louis. This was in the mid-1920s.
Joe Hildebrand* Louis met him on the docks in New Orleans in the mid-1920s, then ran into him later in Indonesia. Joe may have been the first mate and Louis second mate on a schooner operated by Captain Douglas. This would have been in the East Indies in the later 1920s or early 1930s. Joe may have been an aircraft pilot and flown for Pan-Am in the early 1930s.
Turk Madden* Louis knew him in Indonesia in the late 1920s or early 1930s. They may have spent some time around the old? Straits Hotel and the Maypole Bar in Singapore. Later on, in the States, Louis traveled around with him, putting on boxing exhibitions. Madden worked at an airfield near Denver as a mechanic in the early 1930s. Louis eventually used his name for a fictional character.
Cockney? Joe Hagen* Louis knew him in Indonesia in the late 1920s or early 1930s.
Richard LaForte* A merchant seaman from the Bay area. Shipped out with Louis in the mid-1920s.
Mason or Milton* Don't know which was his real name. He was a munitions dealer in Shanghai in the late 1920s or 1930s. He was killed while Louis was there.
His head was stuck on a pipe in front of his house as a warning not to double-cross a particular warlord.
Singapore Charlie* Louis knew him in Singapore and served with him on Captain Douglas's schooner in the East Indies. Louis was second mate and Charlie was bo'sun. He was a stocky man of indeterminate race, and, if I remember correctly, Dad told me he had quite a few tattoos. In the early 1930s Louis helped get him a job on a ship in San Pedro, California, that was owned by a movie studio.
Renee Semich She was born in Vienna, I think, and was going to a New York art school when Louis met her.
This was just before WWII. Her father's family was from Yugoslavia or Italy, her mother from Austria.
They lived in New York; her aunt had an apartment overlooking Central Park. For a while she worked for a company in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Aola Seery Friend of Louis's from Oklahoma City in the late 1930s. She was a member of the Writer's Club? and I think she had both a brother and a sister.
Enoch Lusk Owner of Lusk Publishing Company in 1939, original publisher of Louis's Smoke from this Altar. Also associated with the National Printing Company, Oklahoma City.
Helen Turner* Louis knew her in late 1920s Los Angeles.
Once a showgirl with Jack Fine's Follies.
James Jimmy? Eades* Louis knew him in San Pedro in the mid-1920s.
Frank Moran Louis met him in Ventura, California when Louis was a club second? for fighters in the later 1920s. They also may have known each other in Los Angeles or Kingman, Arizona, in the mid-1920s.
Louis ran into him again on Hollywood Boulevard late in 1946.
Jud and Red Rasco* Brothers or cousins, cowboys, Louis met them in Tucumcari, New Mexico. Also saw them in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. This was in the early to mid-1920s.
Olga Santiago Friend of Louis's from late 1940s Los Angeles. Last saw her at a book signing in Thousand Oaks, California.
Jose Craig Berry* A writer friend of Louis's from Oklahoma City in the late 1930s. She worked for a paper called the Black Dispatch.
Evelyn Smith Colt She knew him in Kingman at one point, probably the late 1920s. Louis saw her again much later at a Paso Robles book signing.
Kathlyn Beucler Hays Friend from Choctaw, taught school there in the 1930s. Louis saw her much later at a book signing in San Diego.
Floyd Bolton* A man from Hollywood who came out to Oklahoma to talk to Louis about a possible trip to Java to make a movie.
Lisa Cohn Reference librarian in Portland; family owned Cohn Bros, furniture store. Louis knew her in the late 1920s or early 1930s.
Mary Claire Collingsworth Friend and correspondent from Oklahoma in the 1930s.
C. A. Donnell Guy in Oklahoma City in the early 1930s who rented Louis a typewriter.
Captain Douglas* Captain of a ship in Indonesia that Louis served on, a three-masted auxiliary schooner.
Leonard Duks* I think that this was probably a shortened version of the original family name. A first mate in the mid-1920s. I think that he was a U. S. citizen but he was originally a Russian.
Maudee Harris My aunt Chynne's sister.
Parker LaMoore and Chynne Harris LaMoore*
Louis's eldest brother and his wife. Parker was secretary to the governor of Oklahoma for a while, then he worked for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain. He also worked with Ambassador Pat Hurley. He died in the early 1950s. Chynne outlived him, but I don't kn
ow where she lived after his death.
Mrs. Brown Worked for Parker LaMoore in the 1930s to the 1950s.
Haig* First name unknown. Louis described him as a Scotsman, once an officer in the British-India army.
Louis said he was an officer in one of the Scottish regiments.
Louis knew him in Shanghai in the 1930s, and we don't know how old he would have been at the time. He may have been involved in some kind of intelligence work. He and Louis shared an apartment for a while, which seems to have been located just off Avenue King Edward VII.
Lola LaCorne Along with her sister and mother, she was a friend of Louis's in Paris during World War II.
She later taught literature at the Sorbonne and had (hopefully still has) a husband named Christopher.
Dean Kirby A pal from Oklahoma City in the late 1930s who seems to have been a copywriter or something of the sort. Might have worked for Lusk Publishing.
Bunny Yeager Girlfriend of Dean Kirby's from Oklahoma City. Not the famous photographer for Playboy.
Virginia McElroy Girl with whom Louis went to school in Jamestown, North Dakota.
Guardsman Fenwill A British boxer in the period between the mid-1920s and the mid-1930s.
Arleen Weston Sherman A friend of Louis's from Jamestown, when he was thirteen or fourteen. I think her family visited the LaMoores in Choctaw in the 1930s. Her older sister's name is Mary; parents' names are Ralph and Lil.
Harry Bigelow Louis knew him in Ventura. He had a picture taken with Louis's mother, Emily LaMoore, at a place named Berkeley Springs around 1929. Louis may have known him at the Katherine mine, near Kingman, Arizona, or in Oregon.
Tommy Pinto Boxer from Portland; got Louis a job at Portland Manufacturing.
Nancy Carroll An actress as of 1933. She may have been in the chorus of a show at the Winter Garden in New York and a cabaret in New Jersey where she and her sister danced occasionally, probably during the mid-to late 1920s.
Judith Wood Actress. Louis knew her in Hollywood in the late 1920s.
Stanley George The George family relocated from Kingman, Arizona, to Ventura, California, possibly in the late 1920s.
Francis Lederer* Actor whom Louis knew in late 1920s Los Angeles. I'm looking for anyone who knew him in Hollywood between 1926 and 1931.
Lieutenant Rix Served in the 3622 Quartermaster Truck Co. in Europe in 1944-45.
Pablo De Gantes * Ex-soldier of fortune who occasionally wrote magazine articles for Lands of Romance in the 1930s. This man used several names, and I beHiNHettn^ lieve he was actually a Belgian. He lived in Mexico at one time.
Lieutenant King Traveled to England with Louis when he was shipped overseas in early 1944.
K. C. Gibson or bis two nephews In October 1924, they were crossing New Mexico and Arizona, bound for Brawley, California.
Wilma Anderson A friend of Louis's from Oklahoma who worked in the Key campaign headquarters in 1938.
Johnny Annette A boxer Louis fought a bout with in Woodward, Oklahoma (or Kansas) in the 1930s.
Harry Bell A boxing promoter Louis worked with in Oklahoma City in the 1930s.
Joe Bickerstaff* An occasional boxing promoter, in Klamath Falls, Oregon, in the late 1920s.
Pat Chaney Friend of Louis's from Choctaw, Oklahoma, in the late 1930s.
Mr. Lettsinger* An older man whom Louis knew in Klamath Falls in the late 1920s. I think he was from the Midwest or the South.
Tommy Dan forth* A boxing promoter from Prescott, Arizona, in the mid-1920s. Was using the V. A. hospital at Fort Whipple.
Ned DeWitt* Knew Louis in Oklahoma in the 1930s, also a friend of Jim Thompson.
Austin Fullerton Sold tickets for athletic events in Oklahoma City in the late 1930s.
Martha Nell Hitchcock A friend from Edmond, Oklahoma, in the 1930s.
Tommy Tucker* Boss stoker on a British Blue Funnel ship in the mid-1920s to mid-1930s.
Dynamite Jackson* An African-American fighter Louis helped promote in Oklahoma in the 1930s.
Orry Kelly Designer in Hollywood; Louis knew him in the late 1940s.
Dorothy Kilgallen A newspaper columnist who worked in L. A. in the 1950s.
Henry Li Louis knew him from 1943, when he was at Camp Robinson, Arkansas.
Savoie Lottinville* Of the University of Oklahoma.
Julio Lopez Louis worked for him very briefly in Phoenix in the mid-1920s.
Joe May A rancher Louis boxed with in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, in the 1920s.
Ann Mehaffey A friend of Louis's from the time he spent at Camp Robinson, Arkansas.
Sam Merwin or Sam Mines*' Once worked with Leo Margulies at Standard Magazines/Better Publications.
Jack Natteford Screenwriter who worked with Louis in the 1950s.
Joe Paskvan Once of the Oklahoma Writers Project, who Louis knew in the late 1930s.
Billy Prince Went to sea in the late 1930s on the Wallace E. Pratt, a Standard tanker.
Countess Dulong de Rosney (Toni Morgan)* Louis knew her in France in the mid-1940s.
Dot and Truitt Ross Brother and sister Louis knew in Oklahoma in the 1930s.
Mary Jane Stevenson A friend of Louis's from L. A. in the late 1940s.
Orchid Tatu Lived in Sparta, Wisconsin, in the mid-1940s.
Florence Wagner Wife of Rob Wagner of Rob Wagner's Script.
Doris Weil A roomer in the flat where Louis lived in the late 1940s.
Sandra Widener Wrote an article on Louis called The Untold Stories of Louis L'Amour.
Anyone who knew Louis in Los Angeles or New York between 1946 and 1956.
I would also like to hear about, or from, anyone who served on S. S. Steel Worker between 1925 and 1930.
In particular: Captain C. C. Boase, 2nd Mate Ralph Jones, 3d Mate Raymond Cousins, Radio Operator Stanley Turbervil, Carpenter George Mearly, Bo'sun H. Allendorf, Chief Engineer C. B. Dahlberg, 1st Asst Eng. O. E. Morgan, 2nd Asst Eng. W. Haynes, 3d Asst Engineers George G. Folberth and William Stewart, Oilers A. Chagnon and A. Kratochbil, Firemen William Hohroien, J. Perez, Manfrido Gonzales, John Fennelly, and E. G. Burnay, Wipers A. Sanchez, ] J. Dalmasse and F. Clifford, Steward /. Shiel, Messmen Dean Bender, William Harvey, and /. H. Blomstedt, Abie-Bodied Seamen Ernest Martin, Chris Moore, Karl Erickson, Steve Schmotzer, Michael Llorca, Louis Armand, Joseph Morris, Herbert Lieflander, William Reichart, and H. F. Waite.
Also, anyone familiar with Singapore in the late 1920s, the old Straits Hotel, and the Maypole Bar. And anyone who is very knowledgeable in military history and/or politics in western (Shansi, Kansu, and Sinkiang provinces) China in 1928-36.
I am also looking for seamen who served on the following ships: the Catherine G. Sudden, between 1925 and 1936; the Yellowstone, between 1925 and 1936; the S. S. Steadfast, between 1924 and 1930; the Annandale (exact spelling uncertain), a four-masted bark, between 1920 and 1926; the Randsberg, a German freighter, between 1925 and 1937.
Also, anyone who knows anything about an old square-rigged sailing vessel called the Indiana, which was used in movies in the 1920s and 1930s. This ship was docked at San Pedro.
Anyone who knows anything about the following boxers: Jonny Kid? Stopper, Jack Horan, Kid? Yates, Butch Vierthaler (Bill Thaler). And Ira O'Neil, Jimmy Roberts, Jimmy Russo, Jack McGraf, or Jackie Jones- guys Louis met in Phoenix in October of 1924.
Anyone who knows anything about a fight (I assume with small arms) between two trading schooners that was stopped by a British warship near Pinaki in the South Pacific. This would have been between 1926 and 1932.
Anyone from the family or group that Louis guided around Egypt sometime between 1926 and 1937.
Although he very much looked the part, Louis finally admitted that he wasn't a real guide and that he'd been using a tour book from a library to learn about where he was taking them. They may have been staying at Shepherds.
Some or all of the party were Americans, and there may have been as many as twelve of them.
Anyone who might know about a flight
that Louis took across Africa with a French officer, with stops at Taudeni and Timbuktu. This would have been between the mid-1920s and late 1930s.
Anyone familiar with an island in the Spratly group called Itu Aba.
Anyone who knows anything about a very shortlived magazine published in Oklahoma City in 1936 called Uptown Magazine.
Anyone who knows if Norman Foster and Rex Bell (George Francis Beldam) ever went to sea during the 1920s or early 1930s.
Anyone who knows where the personal and business papers of B. P. Schulberg (not Budd) and Sam Katz are archived. Both of these men worked at Paramount Publix Pictures. The period that I am interested in is the late 1920s to the early 1930s.
Anyone familiar with the Royal Government Experimental Hospital in Calcutta, India.
I would also like to hear from men who served in the following military units: the 3622 Quartermaster Truck Company, between June of 1944 and December of 1945; the 3595 Quartermaster Truck Company, after October 1945 and before January 1946; the 670th Tank Destroyer Battalion, at Camp Hood, Texas in 1943; the 808th Tank Destroyer Battalion, at Camp Phillips, Kansas, in 1943.
Also, soldiers or officers who took basic training at Camp Robinson, Arkansas, between September 1942 and January 1943; took winter training at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, and near Land o' Lakes and Watersmeet in the northern Michigan peninsula between October 1943 and February 1944, or remember Louis in early 1944 when he was staying at the St. Francis Hotel and the Belleview in San Francisco. During this time he worked at the Oakland Air Base and Fort Mason, California.
Later he was at Camp Beale, California.
Anyone who worked with the Oklahoma WPA
Writers Project.
Any recordings that anyone knows about of any of Louis's speeches.
I think of myself in the oral tradition-as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man in the shadows of the campftre. That's the way I'd like to be remembered-as a storyteller. A good storyteller.
Beyond the Great Snow Mountains (Ss) (1999) Page 22
