December 20, 1947
Hollywood
Shoppers in the S.H. Kress Co. store at 6608 Hollywood Boulevard this evening were terrorized when a gun-wielding robber forced floorman John W. Cossett to empty a register and hand over $110 before fleeing the scene.
The disappointing take seems about what you'd expect when a gunman hits a dime store.
And at the age of 55, after dozens of novels and countless short stories, he died. Not that you’ve heard of him or any of his books—unless you collect potboiler novels of the 1930s.
ReplyDeleteThe list of his works is impressive in bulk if nothing else, with titles that tell the entire plot in two or three words: “Dancing Feet,” “In Love With a T-Man,” “Love or Money,” “Modern Marriage” and my favorite: “Short Skirts: A Story of Modern Youth.”
Robert F. Burkhardt was born in Altoona, Iowa, and after a long apprenticeship as a reporter at a series of newspapers, he began handling publicity in the Hollywood studios: Fox, Paramount and Warner Bros. He and his wife, Eve, combined their names to form the pen name Rob Eden, adopting another pseudonym, Adam Bliss, for a series of mysteries.
Today, not a single one of his volumes is in the collection of the Los Angeles Public Library. A Google search turns up very little on him or his widow. However, a 1935 article in The Times lists many celebrity authors and their pseudonyms:
Guy Bolton—writing as H.B. Trevelyan (“The Dark Angel”)
Harry Chandlee and Douglas Churchill—writing as Lee Hill (“Platinum Blonde”)
Lou Edelman—writing as George Schierhaus (“G-Men”)
Douglas Fairbanks—writing as Elton Thomas (“Thief of Baghdad”)
W.C. Fields—writing as Charles Bogle (according to imdb.com he also used Mahatma Kane Jeeves).
Phil Goldstone—writing as Phil Stone
D.W. Griffith—writing as Lady Smythe-Cavendish, Lord James Byington
M.H. Hoffman—writing as E. Morton Hough (“Champagne for Breakfast”)
Sol Lesser—writing as Don Swift (“Mine With the Iron Door”)
David O. Selznick—writing as Oliver Jeffries (“Reckless”)
John Stahl—writing as Louise Reels
Daryl Zanuck—writing as Melville Crosman
The works of Rob Eden:
Always in Her Heart
Blond Trouble
Dancing Feet
Fickle
The Girl With Red Hair
Golden Goddess
Heartbreak Girl
Her Dream Prince
Her Fondest Hope
In Love With a T-Man
Jennifer Hale
Kathie the First
Loot
Love Blind
Love Came Late
Love Comes Flying
Love or Money
Love Wings
The Lovely Liar
Lucky Lady
Men at Her Feet
Modern Marriage
Moon Over the Water
The Mountain Lodge
A New Friend
Pay Check
Second Choice
Short Skirts: A Story of Modern Youth
Step-Child
This Man Is Yours
Trapped By Love
$20 a Week
The works of Adam Bliss:
The Camden Ruby Murders
Four Times a Widower
Murder Upstairs
www.lmharnisch.com