26 Facts About Leslie Charteris

Leslie Charteris was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of his hero Simon Templar, alias "The Saint".

Leslie Charteris's father, Dr S C Yin, was a Chinese physician who claimed to be able to trace his lineage back to the emperors of the Shang dynasty.

Leslie Charteris attended Saint Andrew's School, Singapore, and after moving to England, Rossall School in Fleetwood, Lancashire.

Leslie Charteris continued to write British thriller stories while working at various jobs, from shipping out on a freighter to working as a barman in a country inn.

Leslie Charteris prospected for gold, dived for pearls, worked in a tin mine and on a rubber plantation, toured Britain with a carnival, and drove a bus.

However, in his 1980 introduction to a reprint by Charter Books, Leslie Charteris indicated he was dissatisfied with the work, suggesting its only value was as the start of the long-running Saint series.

Occasionally, he chose to ignore the existence of Meet the Tiger altogether and claimed that the Saint series actually began with the second volume, Enter the Saint ; an example of this can be found in the introduction Leslie Charteris wrote to an early 1960s edition of Enter the Saint published by Fiction Publishing Company.

Leslie Charteris wrote a few other books, including a novelization of his screenplay for the Deanna Durbin mystery-comedy Lady on a Train, and the English translation of Juan Belmonte: Killer of Bulls by Manuel Chaves Nogales.

From 1963 onward, other authors ghost-wrote the stories, while Leslie Charteris acted as an editor, approving stories and making revisions when needed.

Leslie Charteris relocated to the United States in 1932, where he continued to publish short stories and became a writer for Paramount Pictures, working on the George Raft film, Midnight Club.

Leslie Charteris wrote scripts for Alex Raymond's newspaper comic Secret Agent X-9.

In 1936, Leslie Charteris was a passenger on the maiden voyage of the Hindenburg.

In 1941, Leslie Charteris appeared in a Life photographic adaptation of a short story of The Saint, with himself playing the Saint.

However, it was produced by British Hammer Film Productions, based on a special agreement between Hammer Films and Leslie Charteris, which gave Charteris a percentage in the film.

Leslie Charteris saw this as a ploy to deprive him of his royalties, and sued RKO.

Later, as original scripts were commissioned, Leslie Charteris permitted some of these scripts to be novelized and published as further adventures of the Saint in printed form.

Leslie Charteris lived to see a second British TV series, Return of the Saint starring Ian Ogilvy as Simon Templar, enjoy a well-received, if brief, run in the late 1970s and, in the 1980s, a series of TV movies produced by an international co-production and starring Simon Dutton kept interest in The Saint alive.

Leslie Charteris produced the original theme tune to the series, as can be seen on the end credits.

Leslie Charteris himself stepped away from writing the books after The Saint in the Sun.

The next year, Vendetta for the Saint was published and while it was credited to Leslie Charteris, it was actually written by science fiction writer Harry Harrison.

Leslie Charteris appears to have served in an editorial capacity for these later volumes.

Leslie Charteris edited and contributed to The Saint Mystery Magazine, a digest-sized publication.

Two additional books were published in 1997, a novelization of the film loosely based on the character, and an original novel published by "The Saint Club", a fan club that Leslie Charteris himself founded in the 1930s.

Leslie Charteris wrote a column on cuisine for an American magazine, and invented a wordless, pictorial sign language called Paleneo, which he wrote a book about.

In 1952, Leslie Charteris married Hollywood actress Audrey Long ; the couple eventually returned to England, where he spent his last years living in Surrey.

Leslie Charteris died at Princess Margaret's Hospital Windsor, Berkshire, on 15 April 1993, survived by his wife and daughter, Patricia.