Carol Heiss: Olympic Queen

Robert Brown Parker (1932-2010) was an American writer of fiction, primarily of the mystery/detective genre. He also wrote several other non-fiction books, including Sports Illustrated Training with Weights (with John R. Marsh, 1974) and A Year At The Races (with Joan H. Parker, 1990). He was most famous for his 40 novels written about the private detective Spenser, which ABC television network developed in the mid-1980s into the television series Spenser: For Hire, based on the character, starring Robert Urich. Parker was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on September 17, 1932. He earned a B.A. degree from Colby College in Waterville, Maine 1954, served in the U.S. Army Infantry in Korea, and then returned to receive a master’s degree in English literature from Boston University in 1957. He then worked in advertising and technical writing until 1962. He received a Ph.D. in English literature from Boston University in 1971 and wrote his first novel that same year, while teaching at Northeastern University. He also taught at Lowell State College and Bridgewater State College. He became a full professor in 1976, before turning to full-time writing in 1979 with five Spenser novels to his credit. In addition to his Spenser novels, Parker was also the author of the Jesse Stone series, which was made into a series of television movies for CBS, and the Sunny Randall series. His novel Appaloosa (2005) was made into a 2008 movie directed by and starring Ed Harris. Parker received numerous awards for his work, including an Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1977 for The Promised Land, Grand Master Edgar Award for his collective oeuvre in 2002, and the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. He died of a heart attack on January 18, 2010 at the age of 77.