Jack Schaefer


Jack Warner Schaefer 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".

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 1946 with his novel Shane, set in Wyoming. Though Schaefer himself had never been in the western United States, he continued writing westerns, selling his house in Connecticut and moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1955 with his second wife, Louise. They resided in an old adobe home at 905 Camino Ranchitos, just off of Canyon Rd.
In 1975 Schaefer received the Western Literature Association's Distinguished Achievement award.
He died of heart failure in Santa Fe in 1991.
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.

Books