Elliot Arnold papers
Photograph of United States aircraft performing a bombing run over Regensburg, Germany, 1944.
Collection area: Literature
Collection dates: 1920s-1980 (bulk 1934-1980)
The collection includes biographical materials, correspondence, manuscripts, short stories, and articles written by Elliott Arnold. The collection also contains research files, newspaper clippings and photographs. The majority of the collection consists of original manuscripts, short stories and articles written by Elliott Arnold.
The bulk of the correspondence contains letters received in the 1960s and 1970s from agents, business associates and friends which document Elliott Arnold's publishing activities at the time. The Photographs include mostly black and white photos of Elliott Arnold during his military career, publicity shots throughout his lifetime, and autographed photographs of individuals, including Jimmy Stewart. Most of the collection is arranged alphabetically within each series.
Elliott Arnold was born September 13, 1912, in New York City to parents Jack and Gertrude Frank Arnold. He attended college at CCNY and NYU. He began his writing career while in college, as a reporter at the Brooklyn Times. He wrote his first novel Two Loves at 18 years old. In 1932 he started writing for the NY World Telegram. During his time there he wrote Personal Combat, Only the Young, Finlandia, and The Commandos. Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor he enlisted in the army and was assigned to the Army Air Corps. He helped in the collaboration of two official air histories, Mediterranean Sweep and Big Business. After four years in the military he was awarded the Bronze Star Metal by General MacArthur and was discharged with the rank of captain.
Elliott Arnold then went on to be a prolific writer of novels, short stories, and articles. His novels include; Blood Brothers, Time of the Gringo, Flight from Ashiya, A Night of Watching, The Proving Ground, and the Camp Grant Massacre. Many of his short stories and articles have appeared in Playboy, Reader's Digest, and Colliers. A number of his works went on to become screen plays. In 1950 Broken Arrow, based on his novel Blood Brothers was released by Twentieth Century-Fox, and in 1964, A Flight from Ashiya was released by United Artists.
During his lifetime Arnold had been acknowledged for numerous awards including: the Commonwealth Club of California Silver Medals in 1948, for Blood Brother, in 1960, for Flight from Ashiya, and in 1968, for A Night of Watching, and the Screen Writers Guild prize for Broken Arrow, in 1951. Elliott Arnold died May 13, 1980, in New York City.
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