Alma mater University of Windsor Name Robert Knuckle | Role Author Education University of Windsor | |
Born Robert Gordon Knuckle
February 15, 1935 (age 89)
Windsor, Ontario, CA ( 1935-02-15 ) Occupation Author, playwright, actor, public speaker Spouse Elizabeth Anne Myles (1962-present) Children Richard
Laura
Mark
Kelly Books A Master of Deception: Working Undercover for the RCMP | ||
Robert Gordon Knuckle (born February 15, 1935) is a best-selling Canadian author, actor and playwright. He is a member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. Knuckle was an educator for thirty-five years before he started writing full-time in 1992. He is an ACTRA award-winning author of ten books and two booklets. Most of his books are about true crime and/or tales of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who have invested him as an honorary life member of their veterans' association. He has also written for the stage, television, radio, and cinema. Nine of his thirteen stage plays have been produced at major venues in Canada, USA, and in Europe, including the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. One of his true-crime novels has been adapted into a movie which is presently in pre-production in Los Angeles. He is also a contributing researcher with Encyclopedia Titanica, specializing in Canada's role in retrieving the Titanic bodies from the sea and their burials in three Halifax graveyards. Knuckle is also a prolific public speaker who has addressed over 200 service clubs. His topics include presentations about his books and plays and include a power-point presentation on Canada and the Titanic which deals with the aftermath of the Titanic tragedy.
Education and early career
Robert acted and wrote sports columns in high school and university. After graduating from the University of Windsor, he earned his M. Ed. from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He then pursued a lengthy career in education as an English and Latin teacher and high school administrator in Hamilton, Ontario. He also coached basketball and football in several high schools and at McMaster University in Hamilton. Upon retiring from education he became the general manager of the Hamilton Skyhawks of the World Basketball League. When that league folded in 1992, Knuckle began to write full-time. In 1984, while engaged as a vice-principal, he and his writing partner Gordon Carruth, a Hamilton Secondary School principal, wrote a play about the life of fabled National Football League (NFL) coach Vince Lombardi entitled I Am Not a Legend. It became very successful playing in Hamilton; Toronto; Windsor; Coventry, England; Edinburgh, Scotland; Lahr, Germany and Green Bay, Wisconsin. I Am Not a Legend was also televised and aired on ESPN in the USA. Knuckle and Carruth also adapted their Legend script for CBC Radio for which they both won ACTRA Awards for writing. In all these various productions of Legend Knuckle played the role of Vince Lombardi.