Charles Willeford

Charles Willeford was born 2 January 1919 in Little Rock, Arkansas. A novelist, poet, and literary critic, Willeford is best known for his Hoke Moseley detective series. Three of his books have been adapted for the screen: Cockfighter (1974, starring Warren Oates, directed by Monte Hellman), Miami Blues (1990, starring Alec Baldwin, directed by George Armitage), and The Woman Chaser (1999, a low-budget film starring Seinfeld regular Patrick Warburton, directed by Robinson Devor).

Willeford died in Miami, Florida in March 1988. Having served as a tank commander in Europe during World War II, earning the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, for outstanding bravery, the Purple Heart with one oak leaf cluster, and the Croix de Guerre, he is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Bibliography

This bibliography is adapted from Don Herron's Willeford, courtesy of Dennis McMillan Publications.

1. Proletarian Laughter. Yonkers: The Alicat Bookshop Press, 1948. No. 12 in the Alicat Outcast Poets Series of Chapbooks. One thousand copy press run. Contains a preface by the author and seven prose "Schematics" interlaced with the poems.
2. High Priest of California. New York: Royal Books, 1953. Paperback original. Willeford's first published novel. The blurbs for High Priest read "A Roaring Saga of the Male Animal on the Prowl," and "The world was his oyster-and women his pearls! ", which neatly sum up the adventures of Russell Haxby, used car salesman. 151,000 copy press run.
3. Pick-up. New York: Beacon Books, 1955. Paperback original. His second published novel. Willeford's original tide was Until I Am Dead.
4. High Priest of California and Wild Wives. New York: Beacon Books, 1956.
5. Honey Gal. New York: Beacon Books, 1958. Paperback original. The original title was The Black Mass of Brother Springer. The publisher refused that one, asking for another. Nigger Lover was substituted. Beacon refused, released as Honey Gal, March, 1958.
   • The Black Mass of Brother Springer. Berkeley, California: Black Lizard Books, 1989. Paperback reprint, with Willeford's title restored.
6. Lust is a Woman. New York: Beacon Books, June, 1958. Paperback original. Willeford's title was Made in Miami.
7. The Woman Chaser. Chicago: Newsstand Library, April, 1960. Paperback original. Original title was The Man Who Got Away.
8. The Whip Hand. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, February, 1961. Paperback original. Published under the sole by-line of W. Franklin Sanders. In his files Willeford had a manuscript of this novel entitled Deliver Me From Dallas! "by W. Franklin Sanders and Charles Willeford."
9. Understudy for Love. Chicago: Newsstand Library, October, 1961. Paperback original. Original title was The Understudy: A Novel of Men and Women.
10. No Experience Necessary. Chicago: Newsstand Library, January, 1962. Paperback original. Original title was Nothing Under the Sun. The in-house editor rewrote parts of this novel in what he presumed was a paperback jungle style (indeed, he got close enough) without Willeford's advance knowledge or subsequent approval. Willeford disclaimed this book. He salvaged the work later by using it, with only slight rewriting, as the Pop Sinkiewicz half of Sideswipe.
11. Cockfighter. Chicago: Chicago Paperback House, 1962. Paperback original.
    • Cockfighter New York: Crown Publishers, 1972. A slightly rewritten second edition of this novel, here published in hardcover (and Willeford's third hardback book).
12. The Machine in Ward Eleven. New York: Belmont Books, June, 1963. Paperback original. A short story.
13. Poontang and Other Poems. Crescent City, Florida: New Athenaeum Press, 1967. Self-published saddle-stapled chapbook of poetry.
14. The Burnt Orange Heresy. New York: Crown Publishers, 1971. Willeford's first hardcover original.
15. The Hombre from Sonora. New York: Lenox Hill Press, 1971. His second hardcover original. Published under the pseudonym "Will Charles."
16. A Guide for the Undehemorrhoided. Kendall: Florida: self-published, 1977. Hardcover. A short account of Willeford's hemorrhoid operation.
17. Off the Wall. Montclair, New Jersey: Pegasus Rex Press, 1980. Hardcover. Non-fiction. An account of the Son of Sam case, telling the story of Craig Glassman, the deputy sheriff who captured David Berkowitz.
18. Miami Blues. New York: St. Martins Press, March 1984. Hardcover. The first of the crime novels featuring Hoke Moseley. Willeford's original title was Kiss Your Ass Good-bye.
19. New Hope for the Dead. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. Hardcover. The second Hoke Moseley novel.
20. Something About a Soldier. New York: Random House, 1986. Hardcover. Autobiographical account of Willeford's first hitches in the peacetime Army and Air Force in the Philippines and California, from age sixteen to age twenty.
21. Sideswipe. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987. Hardcover. The third Hoke Moseley novel.
22. New Forms of Ugly. Miami Beach, Florida: Dennis McMillan Publications, 1987. A revised version of The Immobilized Man: A New Hero In Modern Fiction, Willeford's Master's Thesis at the University of Miami.
23. Kiss Your Ass Good-Bye. Miami Beach, Florida: Dennis McMillan Publications, 1987. A self-contained fragment from Willeford's long novel The Shark-Infested Custard, finished by early 1975, but rejected by everyone who saw it as "too depressing" to publish.
24. The Way We Die Now. New York: Random House, 1988. Hardcover. The fourth Hoke Moseley novel.
25. Everybody's Metamorphosis. Missoula, Montana: Dennis McMillan Publications, 1988. Short story collection.
26. I Was Looking for a Street. Woodstock, Vermont: The Countryman Press, 1988. Hardcover. Autobiography, covering Willeford's childhood and the period when he went on the road as a teenager during the Depression, before joining the Army.
27. Cockfighter Journal: The Story of a Shooting. Santa Barbara, California: Neville Publishing, Inc., April 1989. Hardcover. Autobiography, about the filming of the Roger Corman production of his novel Cockfighter (on which Willeford worked as screenwriter and also acted in the role of Ed Middleton), taken from a diary he kept during the shoot.
28. A Charles Willeford Omnibus. London, England: MacDonald and Co., 1991. A hardcover collection gathering the three novels Pick-Up, The Burnt Orange Heresy and Cockfighter.
29. The Shark-Infested Custard. Novato, California: Underwood-Miller Books, May 1993. Hardcover. The long novel deemed "too depressing" to publish when offered around in the mid-seventies, in print at last.
30. The Difference. Tucson, Arizona: Dennis McMillan Publications, 1999. Hardcover. Reprint of The Hombre From Sonora, with Willeford's original title restored.
31. Writing and Other Blood Sports. Tucson, Arizona: Dennis McMillan Publications, 2000. Hardcover. A collection of the author's reflections of writing, writers and related facts of life.

External Links

Dennis McMillan Publications Willeford Site

No Exit Press Willeford Site

See also: Charles Willeford, 1919, 1974, 1988, 1990, 1999, 2 January, Alec Baldwin, Arkansas, Arlington National Cemetery