Harold McGrath was born in Syracuse, NY. He got his start as a writer with a job as a reporter and columnist on the "Syracuse Herald" newspaper, and published his first novel, "Arms and the Woman", in 1899. He turned into a prolific--though some critics said uninspired--author after that, churning out book after book in all different genres: war, romance, crime novels, horror (one of his horror novels, "Drums of Jeopardy", had a character named "Boris Karlov"; British actor William Henry Pratt liked the name and chose it for his stage name, and was thereafter known as Boris Karloff), adventure, etc., for many years. He was also a voluminous writer of short stories, being published in such magazines as the "Saturday Evening Post" and "Ladies Home Journal". Quite a few of his novels were turned into films, and he even wrote screenplays, both original and ones based on his works. Several of his books were turned into plays and performed on Broadway.

He died at his Syracuse home in 1932, a few months after he had announced in a magazine article that for most of his life he had been almost completely deaf, a fact he had managed to hide from employers, editors and associates for fear of either being fired or not hired at all because of the discrimination routinely practiced against deaf people at the time.

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Harold McGrath

Writer