Frank Pulliam Castle | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 8, 1910 Stanley, New Mexico |
| Died | September 18, 1994 (aged 84) Lebanon, Oregon |
| Occupation | Author |
| Genre | western fiction, crime fiction |
Frank Pulliam Castle was an American author of western and crime fiction. He wrote as Frank Castle, Frank P. Castle, and under the pseudonyms Steve Thurman, Val Munroe, Cole Fannin, Jack Slade, and Helen B. Castle.
Castle was born May 8, 1910 in Stanley, New Mexico, one of four children of Wilbur and Ruby (Pulliam) Castle. When he was nine, the family moved to Southern California, where he grew up. He attended San Fernando High School and the University of Oklahoma, majoring in journalism, after which he served in the U.S. Navy from 1940-1946. Following his service, he returned to Southern California. He married Helen Louise (Garratt) Bevillard June 26, 1946 in El Sereno, California. She was born November 21, 1915 in Racine County, Wisconsin, daughter of Arthur Earnest and Anna Loiuse (Tange) Garratt. She had previously been married to Arthur Nestor Bevillard. Helen was a nurse, and Frank would later write a couple of nurse romances under her name. She passed away December 26, 1986, in Los Angeles, California. In 1988 he moved to Lebanon, Oregon, where his two living siblings resided. He died September 18, 1994 at the Villa Cascade Care Center in Lebanon, Oregon. [1]
From the late 1940s onward, Castle made his living as a writer of western and crime fiction, first for pulp fiction magazines and then, beginning in the early 1950s, as a novelist. He branched out into movie and television tie-ins, mostly for younger readers, historical fiction and romance. In addition to his own name, he used a number of pen names in his writing, principally Steve Thurman, but also Cole Fannin for his juveniles, and his wife's name Helen B. Castle for his nurse romances. His contributions to Belmont/Tower's Lassiter series of Westerns appeared under the house name Jack Slade, and he employed Val Munroe for soft porn. His writing career wound down in the early 1970s. One of his late crime novels did not find an American publisher, and only appeared in Finland, in Finnish translation.
Castle's short fiction appeared in Ace-High Western Stories, Best Western, Big-Book Western Magazine, Complete Western Book Magazine, Exciting Western, Fifteen Western Tales, Fighting Western, .44 Western Magazine, Frontier Stories, Leading Western, Mammoth Western Quarterly, Mammoth Western, The Man, New Western Magazine, New Western Magazine (Canada), New Western Magazine (UK), The Pecos Kid Western, Ranch Romances, Rangeland Romances, The Rio Kid Western, Star Western, 10 Story Western Magazine, Texas Rangers (UK), Three Western Novels Magazine, Thrilling Ranch Stories, Thrilling Ranch Stories (UK), Thrilling Western, Thrilling Western (UK), Top Western Fiction Annual, Triple Western, 2-Gun Western, Two Western Books, West, Western Ace High Stories, Western Aces, Western Love Romances, Western Novel and Short Stories, Western Novels (UK), Western Rodeo Romances, Western Short Stories, Western Story (UK), and Western Story Magazine .