Zekial Marko

Zekial Marko (1933–2008) was an American writer who specialised in crime stories, often under the pen name of John Trinian. He was arrested during filming of Once a Thief and spent some time in prison. He died of complications related to emphysema on May 9, 2008, in Centralia, Washington.

Zekial Marko was born as Marvin Leroy Schmoker on October 21, 1933 in Monterey County, California to Ruth Halverson and Wallace Cyril Schmoker. Marko and his brother were neighbors with John Steinbeck in Salinas, California. After his parents divorced, he moved with his mother and brother, Kenn Davis, to San Francisco. He attended grammar school in San Francisco. At the beginning of WWII, Marko and his brother attended a catholic boy's boarding school in Marin County. At the end of the war, Marko and his brother moved back with their mother and step father, Henry Davis. Kenn changed his surname to his step father's name. Marko changed his name to Zekial Marko.

"Marko, a flamboyant actor (later, a Hollywood screenwriter) from Salinas, stage-managed Goodwin's opera."

"Described as a troubled soul, Marko could also be brilliant and charming, and a powerful friend."

"Marko ... was an integral part of a circle of Bohemians who in the mid-1960s frequented Juanita's, a saloon operated by its colorful namesake on the converted ferry, Charles Van Damme, docked on the Sausalito waterfront."

William Hjortsberg states that "Marko stage-managed Jack Goodwin's opera, The Pizza Pusher, that was to be performed at the festival the next day" ... "According to Goodwin, Marko "horned in and coached the poets while they rehearsed." ... "Marko made suggestions about tone, volume, tempo, and gesture." for the Six Gallery reading of Allen Ginsberg's Howl

"during the late 1950s, did a stretch as a bartender at a Sausalito waterhole called The Tin Angel"

"Born in Salinas, in 1933, Trinian settled in the Bay area, supplementing his writing in the 1950s by working as a bartender in a Sausalito waterhole, reminiscent of a character in a Don Carpenter novel. Trinian had quite a reputation at the time, not all of it laudatory. Pulp pundit Rick Ollerman calls him “one of the most realistic of the Gold Medal writers.”"

"(Marko), who was pals with Richard Brautigan, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac, lived the lives he writes about."

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