Raylan Givens

Raylan Givens
Justified character
First appearance	"Fire in the Hole"
Last appearance	"The Promise"
Created by	Elmore Leonard
Portrayed by	James LeGros Timothy Olyphant
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Deputy U.S. Marshal
Title	Marshal Givens
Family	Arlo Givens (father, deceased) Frances Givens (mother, deceased) Helen Givens (aunt/Step-mother, deceased)
Spouse(s)	Winona Hawkins
Children	Sons Ricky and Randy and Daughter Willa and Alex (with Winona)

Raylan Givens is a fictional character created by American novelist and screenwriter Elmore Leonard.

Givens is a Deputy U.S. Marshal and initially appeared in the novels Pronto and Riding the Rap. (Pronto was adapted as a TV movie in 1997 with James LeGros as Givens.) Leonard later penned the short story "Fire in the Hole", which became the basis for the television series Justified starring Timothy Olyphant. In April 2011, Leonard revealed in an interview that the success of Justified had inspired him to begin work on a new novel about the character, with the title Raylan.

In the novel Pronto, Givens is described as about forty years old, thin and rangy, and perpetually wearing a cowboy hat. He is a native of Harlan County, Kentucky. Raylan likes ice cream as mentioned on Justified. He has an intuition about people and their criminal intentions which usually leads to him shooting them despite his best efforts to resolve things peacefully. While Raylan mostly attempts to act righteously, he has cornered certain adversaries with every intention to kill them. This is the very thing that lands Raylan back in Harlan at the start of season one of Justified. In the novels, his hat is described as a flat-brimmed hat akin to the kind worn by the police officers in the photo of Lee Harvey Oswald's murder. According to the novel Pronto, before he became a Deputy Marshal, Givens served in the Marines. After being given the slip by a federal grand jury witness, Harry Arno, at Atlanta Airport, Givens was appointed as a Firearms instructor at the U.S. Marshals Service Basic Training Academy in Glynco, Georgia. Givens, who was an expert marksman with a handgun and an expert at the fast draw with any pistol as well as an expert with other weaponry, perceived this appointment as a demotion or reprimand for losing his witness.

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