Name Jack Schaefer Role Writer | Awards John Newbery Medal | |
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Died January 24, 1991, Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States Movies Shane, Tribute to a Bad Man, Advance to the Rear, Trooper Hook Education Oberlin College, Columbia University Books Shane, Old Ramon, Company of Cowards, Monte Walsh, Shane and other stories Similar People Alfred Bertram Guthrie, George Stevens, Brandon deWilde, Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Van Heflin | ||
Jack Warner Schaefer (November 19, 1907 – January 24, 1991) was an American writer known for his Westerns. His best-known work is Shane, which was made into the film Shane, and the short story "Stubby Pringle's Christmas" (1964).
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Biography
Jack Schaefer was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was the son of a German American attorney. In 1929 he graduated from Oberlin College with a major in English. From 1929-1930 he attended graduate school at Columbia University, but left without completing his Master of Arts degree. He then went to work for the United Press. In his long career as a journalist, he would hold editorial positions at many eastern publications.
Schaefer's first success as a novelist came in 1949 with his novel Shane, set in Wyoming. Though Schaefer himself had never been in the western United States, he continued writing westerns, selling his home in Connecticut and moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1955.
In 1975 Schaefer received the Western Literature Association's Distinguished Achievement award.
He died of heart failure in Santa Fe in 1991. Schaefer was married twice, his second wife moving to Santa Fe with him.
Schaefer's novel Monte Walsh was made into a movie in 1970, with Lee Marvin in the title role, and again in 2003 as a TV movie starring Tom Selleck. Shane was also made into a movie and a series.