William Bayer
| William Bayer | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 20, 1939 Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. |
| Pen name | David Hunt |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | American |
| Education |
Sidwell Friends School (1946) Hawken School (1946–53) Phillips Exeter Academy (1956) Harvard College (1960) |
| Genre | Psychological crime fiction |
| Spouse | Paula Wolfert |
| Relatives |
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William Bayer (born on February 20, 1939, in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American novelist, the author of twenty books including The New York Times best-sellers Switch and Pattern Crimes.
Bayer has written a series of novels featuring fictional New York Police Department lieutenant Frank Janek. He has also written adaptions of his novels for television, and written for other TV shows. Switch was the source for seven television movies, including two four-hour mini-series. In all of them the main character, NYPD Detective Frank Janek, was played by the actor Richard Crenna. All seven movies were broadcast nationally by CBS in prime time.
Bayer's books have been translated into French, Italian, German, Dutch, Japanese, and nine other languages. He has written two novels under the pseudonym David Hunt, later republished in ebook editions under his own name. He wrote and directed the 1971 feature film Mississippi Summer which run the Best First Feature Award (the "Hugo") at the 1970 Chicago International Film Festival.
Bayer is the son of attorney Leo G. Bayer and dramatist Eleanor Rosenfeld Bayer, later known as the screenwriter Eleanor Perry. He describes his family background as secular Jewish and identifies as a secular humanist. During the 1940s his parents wrote and published four mysteries using the pen name "Oliver Weld Bayer." They also wrote a children's book, Dirty Hands Across The Sea, edited a non-fiction anthology, Cleveland Murders, and co-wrote a play Third Best Sport which was produced on Broadway. His grandfather on his father's side (William Samuel Bayer) was a Cleveland industrialist, co-founder of a machine tools manufacturing company. His grandmother on his mother's side (Anne Rosenfeld) was a world class contract bridge player and teacher, winner of numerous tournaments including the 1932 Spingold Knockout.
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