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About the Author John Gilmore was born July 5, 1935 in the Charity Ward of the Los Angeles County General Hospital and was raised in Hollywood. His mother had been a studio contract-player for MGM while his step-grandfather worked as head carpenter for RKO studios. Gilmore's parents separated when he was six months old and Gilmore spent the next few years raised by his grandmother. Gilmore's father, a frustrated actor, became a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer, wrote and acted on radio shows, a police public service (the shows featured promising movie starlets as well as established performers like Bonita Granville, Ann Rutherford, the "jungle girl" Aquanetta, Joan Davis, Hillary Brooke, Ann Jeffreys, Brenda Marshall and other players young John Gilmore became acquainted with. As a child actor, he appeared in a Gene Autry movie and bit parts at Republic Studios. Gilmore says, "You saw a horse galloping past and then some kid standing in the dust. That was me." He worked in LAPD safety films and did stints on radio. Eventually he appeared in commercial films. Actors Ida Lupino and John Hodiak were mentors to Gilmore, who worked in numerous television shows and feature films at Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and Universal International studios. During the 1950s, and through John Hodiak, Gilmore sustained an acquaintanceship with Marilyn Monroe in Hollywood, then in New York, where Gilmore was involved with the Actors Studio, transcribing the lectures of Lee Strasberg into book form. Gilmore performed on stage and in live TV, wrote poetry and screenplays, directed two experimental plays, one by Jean Genet, then wrote and directed a low-budget film but eventually settled into a writing career; journalist, true crime writer and novelist. He served as head of the writing program at Antioch University and has taught and lectured at length. Part of the "Beat Generation," while living in New York City in the Spring of 1953, a mutual friend introduced Gilmore to actor James Dean. Gilmore and Dean became good friends and after he returned home to Hollywood, they renewed their friendship, riding motorcycles together with a select group of friends in leather jackets referred to as the "Night Watch." Gilmore was around Dean at the time the young star was making the film, "Rebel Without a Cause," and both were friends with Eartha Kitt. Later in the 1950s, John Gilmore spent time in Paris, France where he met William S. Burroughs and wrote a novel that was opted by Henry Miller's publisher, Olympia Press. Gilmore frequented the Beat Hotel, and sustained friendships with novelist Francoise Sagan and movie star Brigitte Bardot. Gilmore's novel for Olympia, however, was not released until 1994 when an American publisher acquired the rights, with the encouragement of William Burroughs. Gilmore says, "The novel underwent a number of changes in those decades but the guts remained the same." In his first book on Dean, The Real James Dean, published in 1976, Gilmore caused considerable controversy when he stated that their friendship involved an experimentation with bisexuality. In 1997, Gilmore wrote a second, more detailed book on his relationship with James Dean, entitled Live Fast, Die Young: Remembering the Short Life of James Dean. After writing a series of sexy action pulp novels in the 1960s under the pseudonym Neil Egri and Mort Gillian, in 1970 Gilmore published The Tucson Murders, Dial Press, New York, a hardcover nonfiction true crime detailing the life and crimes of Charles Schmid, the "notorious pied piper of Tucson." Following this, Gilmore published his second nonfiction, The Garbage People, a hardcover exploration into the lives of Charles Manson and the Family. A few years before the so-called Manson Murders, and while an actor, Gilmore met actress Sharon Tate at 20th Century Fox studios. Modestly successful, it gained a much larger audience through a 1996 re-release, and, as most of Gilmore's books, remains in print. In 1994, Gilmore wrote a book that chronicled the famous Black Dahlia unsolved homicide. Occurring in 1947, at a time when his father was on the police force, Gilmore's book
Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder earned him wide recognition. According to the Publishers Weekly review, in the book "Gilmore presents evidence that strengthens the LAPD's case against chief suspect Jack Wilson, a reclusive, alcoholic burglar and possible serial killer." Marilyn Manson, who made paintings based on photos from the book, said: "SEVERED is my favorite book... John Gilmore is my favorite writer. It has been my desire to direct SEVERED as a movie ... my directorial debut ...". Despite Manson's wish, it was director David Lynch who acquired the screen rights. Colin Wilson says of Gilmore's SEVERED: "The best book on the Black
Dahlia -- in fact, the only reliable book." |
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