Dashiell hammett wife

In less than ten years he would be turning these experiences into some of the most popular detective stories of his time. Dashiell Hammett was born on the eastern shore of Maryland in The second of three children, he dropped out of school at the age of thirteen. He worked a succession of low-paying jobs including freight clerk, railroad laborer, messenger boy, and stevedore.

In he began working on and off as a detective for the Pinkerton Agency. Hammett spent his early twenties working as a detective in San Francisco before enlisting in the army during World War I. He became a sergeant in the Motor Ambulance Corp, where he contracted tuberculosis. Upon returning from the service, he realized that his ailing health made it impossible to continue as a detective.

Quitting the agency, he tried his hand at writing. His new gritty style of detective story, however, was better suited to the pulp crime magazines of the time. By he had built a strong following, and decided to branch out with a new character. For his next novel, Hammett created Sam Spade, a rough and solitary man who worked outside of the law.

That same year he began a tempestuous affair with the playwright, Lillian Hellman.

Dashiell hammett characters

Hellman was strong, witty, intelligent and socially connected. Their affair introduced him to the thrilling new world of high society. By the mid-thirties Hammett was at the height of his fame. No longer struggling to pay the rent, he moved to Hollywood and lived within the exclusive world of the Hollywood elite.