Peter B. Kyne

Peter B. Kyne was one of the most prolific writers, of both novels and short stories, in American literature. He was born in San Francisco, CA, in 1880. His father owned a cattle ranch, and Kyne worked on it with his father while he went to school. He attended business school with an eye to helping out at the ranch, but his instructors noted his knack for writing and advised him to become a writer. After holding a variety of jobs, Kyne lied about his age and joined the army, serving with an infantry regiment during the 1898 Spanish-American War and later was posted to the Philippines to help battle a guerrilla campaign by Filipino nationalists. After separation from the army, Kyne again held a succession of jobs, and in 1905 got hired as a reporter for the San Francisco Morning Call. His experiences covering the waterfront there piqued his interest in seamen, a subject that he used in many of his later novels (especially the "Cappy Ricks" series, about a feisty old salt who runs his own steamship line). He had been writing short stories for quite some time, but it wasn't until after he was married in 1910 that he began to get them published, often in some of the most respected magazines of the day, such as Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post. His first novel, "The Three Godfathers", was published in 1913, and was a major success. It was made into several films, the most famous one starring John Wayne (3 Godfathers (1948)). Many of Kyne's short stories and novels were turned into movies, and in the 1930s it seemed like it was impossible to go into a theater and not see a film based on a Kyne story. He also worked on the screenplays of some of the films based on his books. His last novel, "Dude Woman", was published in 1940. Peter B. Kyne died in San Francisco in 1957.