1. Charles Ray Willeford III was an American writer.
23 Facts About Charles Willeford
1. 2.
An author of fiction, poetry, autobiography and literary criticism, Willeford wrote a series of novels featuring hardboiled detective Hoke Moseley.
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Charles Willeford published steadily from the 1940s on, but vaulted to wider attention with the first Hoke Moseley book, Miami Blues, which is considered one of its era's most influential works of crime fiction.
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Charles Ray Willeford III was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on January 2,1919.
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Charles Willeford spent two years in the Air Corps stationed in the Philippines serving as a fire truck driver, a gas truck driver, and briefly as a cook.
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Charles Willeford re-enlisted in March 1939, again joining the Air Corps at March Field, California, but later transferring to the 11th Cavalry stationed at the Presidio of Monterey.
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Charles Willeford served as a "horseholder" in a machine gun troop and earned a marksman qualification.
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In 1942, Charles Willeford married Lara Bell Fridley before being stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, for infantry school.
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Charles Willeford was assigned to Company C, 11th Tank Battalion, 10th Armored Division and sent to Europe as a tank commander.
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Charles Willeford fought in the Battle of the Bulge and earned the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for outstanding bravery, the Purple Heart with one oak leaf cluster, and the Luxembourg War Cross.
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Charles Willeford enlisted again in 1945 for a term of three years.
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Charles Willeford ran the army radio station WLKH and was promoted to master sergeant.
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Charles Willeford enrolled in the Universitarias de Belles Artes in Lima, Peru, studying art and art history in the graduate program.
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Charles Willeford was dismissed from the university when officials learned that he had neither an undergraduate degree nor a high school diploma.
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Charles Willeford lived in New York City for a month at the end of 1949 before re-enlisting in the air force.
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Charles Willeford was stationed at Hamilton Air Force Base in California through April 1952.
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Charles Willeford studied painting in France for a time, returning to the United States to attend Palm Beach Junior College.
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Charles Willeford had been very productive as a novelist after leaving the military, but after 1962's Cockfighter, he would not have another novel published for nine years.
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Charles Willeford wrote the screenplay for the 1974 film adaptation of Cockfighter, in which he acted.
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Three years later came the publication of Miami Blues, the first of the Hoke Moseley novels and their twisted take on the hardboiled tradition for which Charles Willeford would become best known.
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Charles Willeford died of a heart attack at 69 years, in Miami, Florida, on March 27,1988, and was interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
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Four of Charles Willeford's books have been adapted for the screen: Cockfighter, for which Charles Willeford wrote the screenplay; Miami Blues ; The Woman Chaser ; and The Burnt Orange Heresy.
23.
Charles Willeford adapted his first novel, High Priest of California, into a play.