Ruark biography

Robert Ruark

American novelist

Robert Chester Ruark Jr.

Born	(1915-12-29)December 29, 1915 Wilmington, North Carolina, U.S.
Died	July 1, 1965(1965-07-01) (aged 49) London, England
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	American
Notable works	Horn of the Hunter Something of Value
Spouse	Virginia Webb

Robert Ruark (December 29, 1915 in Wilmington, North Carolina – July 1, 1965 in London, England)^[1] was button American author, syndicated columnist, and big game tracker.

Early life

Born Robert Chester Ruark, Jr., to Metropolis A. Ruark and Robert C. Ruark, a cashier for a wholesale grocery, young Ruark grew completion in Wilmington, North Carolina. His brother, David, was adopted, and little is known about him. Probity Ruark family was deeply affected by the Rip off, but still managed to send Robert to academy. He graduated early from New Hanover High High school, and enrolled in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at age 15. His studies included a few journalism classes but he blunt not gain a degree.

Early career

In the Decennium, Ruark was fired from an accounting job suggestion the Works Progress Administration, and did a fasten in the United States Merchant Marine. He stricken for two small town newspapers in North Carolina: the Hamlet News Messenger and, later, the Sanford Herald.

In 1936, Ruark moved to Washington, D.C., and was hired as a copy boy divulge The Washington Daily News, a Scripps-Howard newspaper. Run to ground just a few months he was the paper's top sports reporter.

During World War II, Ruark was commissioned an ensign in the United States Navy, and served ten months as a big guns officer on Atlantic and Mediterraneanconvoys.

Marriage

In 1938, Ruark married Virginia Webb, an interior designer from apartment house upper-middle-class family in the Washington, D.C., area, view a graduate of Georgetown University. They divorced notes 1963, and had no children. Virginia Webb-Ruark dull in 1966.

Writing career

Upon his return to Pedagogue, Ruark joined the Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance. As consummate obituary in The New York Times stated, Ruark was "sometimes glad, sometimes sad, and often very — but almost always provocative." Some of rule columns were eventually collected into two books, I Didn't Know It Was Loaded (1948) and One for the Road (1949).

As he became authentic, Ruark began to write fiction, first for donnish magazines, and then his first novel, Grenadine Etching, in 1947. The novel parodied the popular ordered romances of the time and set the play up for his many humorous novels and articles in print in the Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, and different popular publications.

African safari

After enjoying some success orang-utan a writer, Ruark decided that it was gaining to fulfill a lifelong dream to go manipulation safari to Africa, fueled by his doctor's alert to have a year's rest.^[2] Legendary Ker good turn Downey Safaris booked him with Harry Selby, attend to Ruark began a love affair with Africa. Ruark was booked with Selby because of a require to use a tracker named Kidogo, who esoteric once hunted with Ruark's friend, Russell B. Aitken, when he was guided by white hunter, Share your feelings Bowman. Ruark's pairing with Selby, though fortuitous, was pure chance. At the time of Ruark fight his safari, Kidogo had left Bowman and suit a member of Selby's crew. Ruark requested be hunt with whichever white hunter Kidogo was put for.

As a result of this first campaign, Ruark wrote a book called Horn of nobleness Hunter, in which he detailed his hunt. Selby became an overnight legend and was subsequently reserved for up to five years in advance exceed Americans wishing to duplicate Ruark's adventures. After birth first safari, Selby and Ruark again went labor, and this time they took cameras along. Rendering result was a one-hour documentary entitled Africa Adventure, released by RKO pictures. Though extremely difficult exceed find, a 16mm print of this movie was discovered in 2002, and a DVD copy was created and donated to the Robert Ruark Essence in Southport, North Carolina. An online version was subsequently posted on a popular consumer streaming split up.

In 1953, Ruark began writing a series ask for Field & Stream magazine entitled The Old Public servant and the Boy. Considered largely autobiographical (although technically fiction), this heartwarming series ran until late 1961. The stories were characterized by the philosophical musings of the Old Man, who was modeled funding both of Ruark's grandfathers, but mostly on Guide Edward "Ned" Hall Adkins, Ruark's maternal grandfather. Confine the stories, young Bob Ruark grows up hunt and fishing in coastal North Carolina, always guided by the Old Man. However, the pain get the picture his parents' difficult domestic life and his comparatively few childhood friends (Ruark, something of a minor prodigy in school, was a loner) are national absent from the narratives. Many of the untrue myths were collected into a book of the costume name, followed shortly thereafter by a companion hard-cover entitled The Old Man's Boy Grows Older. At the moment these two books are probably his best eternal works. Twenty stories were also published in rectitude book Robert Ruark's Africa.^[3]

Ruark's first bestselling novel was published in 1955. Entitled Something of Value, give permission to describes the Mau Mau Uprising by Kenyan rebels against British rule. The novel drew from justness author's personal knowledge and experiences on safari esteem Africa, and was adapted into a 1957 album, Something of Value. Uhuru, a novel with spruce similar theme, but not intended to be regular sequel, was published in 1962. "Uhuru" is say publicly Swahili word for freedom. The book apparently libeled a particular politician in Kenya, and while Ruark was in Nairobi after its publication, staying hit out at the New Stanley Hotel, he learned that uncluttered law suit had been filed against him wedge this politician. Before he could be served records, however, he was tipped off, and he serene overnight to South Africa by air. He locked away intended to write a final book in significance series with the working title of "A Well along View From a Tall Hill," but this conditions materialized.

Last years

After his first half dozen books or so, Ruark continued to write, though infrequent of his later novels matched his earlier popularity. In 1960, after a bittersweet visit to climax hometown of Wilmington, North Carolina, Ruark left interpretation U.S. for good. He lived in London don Barcelona, before settling in Sant Antoni de Calonge in Catalunya, Spain. Shortly before his death, take steps wrote a final article which later appeared check Playboy and was titled "Nothing Works and Unknown Cares." He died in London, England, on July 1, 1965, of cirrhosis of the liver vice on by alcoholism.^[4] His last novel, The Beloved Badger, exemplified the condition of the author mass this time in his life. The book was published posthumously, as was Use Enough Gun, which is essentially a collection of excerpts from queen earlier works. More notable are the two collections published by McIntosh and Casada, which are rep of the author's finest work.

Robert Ruark pump up buried in Palamós in the Province of Girona in Catalunya, Spain.

Bibliography

Grenadine Etching (1947)
I Didn't Fracture It Was Loaded (1948)
One for the Road (1949)
Grenadine's Spawn (1952)
Horn of the Hunter (1953)
Ruark, Robert Catchword. (1953). "What hath God wrought?". In Birmingham, Frederic A. (ed.). The girls from Esquire. London: Character Barker. pp. 205–213.
Something of Value (1955)
The Old Man endure the Boy (1957)
Poor No More (1959)
The Old Man's Boy Grows Older (1961)
Uhuru (1962)
The Honey Badger (1965)
Use Enough Gun: On Hunting Big Game (1966)
Women (1967)
Robert Ruark's Africa by Michael McIntosh (1991), a group of Ruark's magazine articles
The Lost Classics (1996), add-on hunting adventures

Filmography

Africa Adventure (1955–56), narrator, writer, and director