James Leo Herlihy
| James Leo Herlihy | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | February 27, 1927 Detroit, Michigan, United States |
| Died | October 21, 1993 (aged 66) Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Occupation | Novelist, playwright, actor |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
James Leo Herlihy (/ˈhɜːrləhi/; February 27, 1927 – October 21, 1993) was an American novelist, playwright and actor.
Herlihy is known for his novels Midnight Cowboy and All Fall Down, and his play Blue Denim, all of which were adapted for cinema. Other publications include The Season of the Witch and several short stories.
Herlihy was born into a working class family in Detroit, Michigan in 1927. He was raised in Detroit and in Chillicothe, Ohio. He enlisted with the Navy in 1945 but never saw action due to the end of World War II. He attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina for two years, where he studied sculpture. He then relocated to Southern California and attended the Pasadena Playhouse College of the Theatre.
He was gay and a good friend of playwright Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), another trail blazing gay writer who wrote about taboo subjects. Williams served as a mentor to the younger writer. Both spent a good deal of time in Key West, Florida. Like Williams, Herlihy also lived in New York City. Apart from Key West, the primary home of Herlihy was in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles.
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