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Zane Grey (b.January 31, 1872 Zanesville, Ohio; d.October 23, 1939, Altadena, California) was best known as an author of popular adventure novels and pulp fiction that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West.

Biography

Early life

Pearl Zane Gray was born in Zanesville, Ohio. (He would later drop his first name, and his family changed their name to Grey.) Growing up in Zanesville, a city founded by a maternal ancestor Ebenezer Zane, he developed interests in fishing, baseball and writing, all which would later contribute to his acclaim. He attended the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship, where he studied dentistry and joined Sigma Nu fraternity; he graduated in 1896. During that time, while playing baseball over the summer in Delaware, he was charged with, and quietly settled, a paternity suit, foreshadowing future womanizing behavior. He went on to play minor league baseball with a team in Wheeling, West Virginia. Additionally, his brother, Romer Carl Grey, played briefly in 1903 for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Marriage

While sporadically practicing dentistry, he often visited Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, to fish the upper Delaware River. It was there where he met Lina Roth, better known as "Dolly", whom he would later marry. With her help and supported in part by her inheritance, he began to focus more on his writings, publishing his first fishing story in 1902. When they married in 1905, they moved to a farmhouse in Lackawaxen. While his wife managed his career and raised their children, Grey often spent months away from her, fishing, writing, and spending time with his many mistresses. While Dolly knew of his behavior, she seemed to view it as a handicap rather than a choice, and she did not blame him for it.

The Greys moved to Altadena, California in 1918 spurred by the memory of a visit during their honeymoon. In 1919, Grey bought a prominent mansion on Millionaire's Row (Mariposa Street) built by Chicago business machine manufacturer Arthur Woodward. The 1909 house is acclaimed as the first fire proof home in Altadena, built of solid concrete as prescribed by Woodward, who had lost friends and family members in Chicago's Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903. Grey summed up his feelings for Altadena with a quote still used to this day in that cite: "In Altadena, I have found those qualities that make life worth living."

His career

He became especially interested in the West in 1907, after joining a friend on an expedition to trap mountain lions in Arizona. Grey wrote steadily, but it was only in 1910, and after considerable efforts by his wife, that his first western, Heritage of the Desert, became a bestseller. It propelled a career churning out popular novels about manifest destiny and the "conquest of the Wild West." Two years later he produced his best-known book, Riders of the Purple Sage (1912). He formed his own motion picture company, but in a few years sold it to Jesse Lasky who was a partner of the founder of Paramount Pictures. Paramount would make a number of movies based on his writings.

It is also speculated that two of his creations, Lone Star Ranger (a novel later turned into a 1930 film) and King of the Royal Mounted (popular as a series of big little books and comics, later turned into a 1936 film), were later used as an inspiration for two radio series by George Trendle (WXYZ, Detroit) which later made the transition to television - The Lone Ranger and Challenge of the Yukon (Sgt. Preston of the Yukon on TV).

He became one of the first millionaire authors. Over the years his habit was to spend part of the year traveling and living an adventurous life and the rest of the year using his adventures as the basis for the stories in his writings. Some of that time was spent on the Rogue River in Oregon, where he maintained a cabin he had built on an old mining claim he bought. He also had a cabin on the Mogollon Rim in Arizona which burned down during the Dude Fire of 1991.

He was the author of over 90 books, some published posthumously and/or based on serials originally published in magazines. Many of them became bestsellers. One of them, “Tales of the Angler’s El Dorado, New Zealand” helped establish the Bay of Islands in New Zealand as a premier game fishing area.

From 1918 until 1932 he was a regular contributor to Outdoor Life magazine, becoming one of the publication's first celebrity writers. In the pages of the magazine he began to popularize big-game fishing.

Fishing in New Zealand

Grey first visited New Zealand in 1926 and caught several large fish of great variety, including mako shark, a ferocious fighter which presented a new challenge. He established a base at Otehei Bay Lodge on Urupukapuka Island which became a magnet for the rich and famous. He continued to fish in New Zealand for many years and his prolific articles in international sporting magazines highlighted the uniqueness of New Zealand fishing which has produced heavy-tackle world records for the major billfish, striped marlin, black marlin, blue marlin and broadbill. He held numerous world records during his time, all of which have since been broken. Also, he invented the teaser, a hookless bait that is still used today to attract fish.

Fishing In Australia

Grey also helped establish deep-sea sport fishing in New South Wales, Australia particularly in Bermagui, a beautiful small village set on Horseshoe Bay, and overshadowed by Mt Dromedary. The deep sea off Bermagui is famous for Marlin fishing. He was patron of the Bermagui Sport Fishing Association for 1936 and 1937, set a number of world records, and wrote of his experiences here in his book "An American Angler in Australia".

Catalina Island

Grey had built a getaway home in Avalon, Catalina Island, which now serves as the Pueblo Hotel. Avid fisherman as he was he served as president of the Catalina's exclusive fishing club, the Tuna Club.

End of life

Zane Grey died in 1939 at his home in Altadena, California and was interred at the Union Cemetery in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, where the National Park Service maintains the Zane Grey Museum as part of the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River. His home in Altadena is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Zane Grey Terrace, a small residential street in the hillsides of Altadena, is named in his honor.

Novels

External links

References

Obituary, Los Angeles Times, October 24 1939, page 1.

Further reading

  • Zane Grey: A Biography by Frank Gruber (1969)
  • Zane Grey by C. Jackson (1973)
  • Zane Grey by A. Ronald (1975)
  • Zane Grey by Carol Gay (1979)
  • Zane Grey's Arizona by Candace C. Kant (1984)
  • Zane Grey: A Photographic Odyssey by Loren Grey (1985)
  • Zane Grey, A Documented Portrait by G.M. Farley (1985)
  • Selling the Wild West by Christine Bold (1987)
  • West of Everything by Jane Tompkins (1992)
  • Zane Grey: His Life, His Adventures, His Women. by Thomas H. Pauly (2005)
  • Rider of the Purple Prose by Jonathan Miles, New York Times Book Review (1 January. 2006)
  • Zane Grey: A Study in Values - Above and Beyond the West by Chuck Pfeiffer (2006)

1872 births | 1939 deaths | American novelists | Ohio writers | Western writers | People from Ohio | People from Arizona | Early American movie moguls | American film producers

Zane Grey | Zane Grey | Zane Grey

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Zane Grey".

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