Biography
MacKinlay Kantor was an American journalist, novelist and screenwriter. Born in Webster City, Iowa, he began his career as a reporter for the Webster City Daily News and later worked as a columnist for the Des Moines Tribune. He wrote numerous short stories for pulp and popular magazines before achieving recognition with historical novels such as Long Remember (1934).
Kantor wrote more than thirty novels, several set during the American Civil War. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1956 for Andersonville (1955). His verse novel Glory for Me (1945) was adapted as the film The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). He also wrote the short story on which Gun Crazy (1950) was based and received screenplay credit for the film.
During the Second World War Kantor served as a war correspondent and as a gunner in the US Air Force. He later worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood.
