Even in an era known for its colorful literary figures, James Norman Schmidt stood out. Born in Chicago on January 10, 1912, James Norman (the name he used on his novels) visited or lived in many countries as an artist, a writer, a journalist, a soldier and a teacher during a long life that was filled with many incidents as exciting and as odd as can be found in his mysteries.

Raised a Catholic, Norman attended Loyola University in Chicago where he was expelled when he and some friends tied the Jesuit boarding room supervisor to his bed so that they could sleep late the following day. Thirty years later in 1953 Norman finally completed his bachelor's degree at Mexico City College. He received his master’s in 1957 from the University of Guanajuato.

After he was thrown out of Loyola, he worked as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune (1932-33) and United Press (1935-36). In 1937, he went to Madrid to cover the Spanish Civil War for the Paris edition of the Tribune.  He quit his job with the Tribune and joined the 14th International Brigade, which was composed primarily of French anti-fascist volunteers. Norman manned a cannon battery during the war and as a result suffered a partial hearing loss.

While at the front, he came down with typhus and spent several weeks with high fevers alone in a cabin, surviving only because composer Conlon Nancarrow (who died recently in Mexico City) walked several kilometers a day to bring him aspirins and potatoes. Invalided out of the army, Norman served as a government newscaster for Madrid radio station EAQ.

During the war, he also met Ernest Hemingway and although in print he claimed to have been impressed by the American writer, he told his children that Hemingway was frozen with fear during bombing raids. When Franco's fascist troops overwhelmed the loyalists, Norman fled Spain from Valencia to France with other International Brigade members on a British ship.

Norman had already spent some time in France where he learned French and studied art at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. An accomplished sculptor, he supported himself in Paris as an ice carver, a profession he took up again in the U.S. from time to time when writing jobs were scarce.  Following the war, Norman returned to Chicago where he served as the sports editor of the Chicago Record (1939-40) and as the editor for Compton's Encyclopedia (1941-42). It was during this period that he wrote for the pulps and published Murder, Chop Chop.

With wife Judith Schoenberg he moved to California, where his son Paul was born in 1942. When his dog Leo refused to allow Judith near baby Paul, Norman offered the German Shepherd to the army's K-9 corps. Norman himself served as a combat correspondent for the U.S. 6th Army in Luzon. A first lieutenant, he was a member of a plane crew that flew low-level missions over the Philippine jungles, dropping supplies to guerrillas. Following the Japanese surrender, Norman served as the cultural attache for the 6th and 8th Armies in Kyoto. Norman received a bronze star for valor and  a special commendation for his work in the press corps. Both he and Leo received honorable discharges in 1946.

Back in Hollywood, Norman was a scriptwriter for the Herald Theatre and the Loretta Young Show. He was beginning to get movie script assignments when it was revealed that he had been a member of the Communist Party in his youth as well as a member of the International Brigade. Sen. Joseph McCarthy's red witch-hunt was focusing on the entertainment industry and Norman found himself blacklisted. Unable to make a living in the United States, Norman moved his family to Mexico where many of his old friends from Spain, including Albert Maltz, were then living in exile. While in Mexico, he and Judith were divorced; he married another writer, Margaret Fox, in 1962, who had a daughter, Melissa, from a previous marriage.

He remained in Mexico for many years, working as a freelance writer and as a lecturer at the Academia Hispanoamericana until 1965, when he was asked to join the faculty of the creative writing program at Ohio University in Athens as a lecturer. In 1968, he was made a full professor, and in 1982, he was named professor emeritus. He died in Athens on Sept. 16, 1983.

In his youth, Norman was an outstanding athlete and was a member of the U.S. water polo team at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. In 1933, he trained Charles "Zimmy" Ziblemann, whom he had met in Africa, to swim the English Channel. Zibelmann reportedly didn't like to train and Norman tempted Zibelmann with glasses of champagne. What made Ziblemann's channel attempts unusual was that he had lost his legs in an auto accident in Chicago while escaping from the mob (Zibelmann had run afoul of the mob when he refused to accept a secret arrangement between them and the Hearst Corporation to control the unions). Three times Norman coaxed Ziblemann into the channel: one time they drifted out into the North Sea and two other times Zibelmann got seasick, once ten and a half hours out of Dover.

Norman was something of a practical joker, as his Jesuit boarding room supervisor could probably testify to. For whatever reason, Norman had it in for film star Greto Garbo and once convinced several friends to collect moths in paper bags which they released in a theater showing a new Garbo film. The moths immediately flew to and covered the entire screen.

An excellent cook, Norman enjoyed entertaining and people were always trying to wangle an invitation to his house for dinner. But if Norman didn't like the guests—often friends of new wife Margaret— he would gather together the dirty dishes after the meal and place them on the floor for the dogs to lick clean; then he would pick them up and put them on shelves in the pantry while the unwelcome guests watched with wide-open mouths. Few sought a second dinner invitation. After they left, he would retrieve the dishes and wash them. "I think even Margaret enjoyed it," son Paul said.

Dogs were always a passion. Whatever the breed—cocker spaniel, visla, Doberman or mongrel—Norman trained them as retrievers for duck hunting. At the time of his death he was working on a gourmet dog cookbook which was to be filled with stories about famous people and their dogs as well as recipes. After Margaret's death in 1979, Norman tested many of these recipes, often sharing a meal with Chuco, the last of his dogs, who reportedly was very fond of escargot.

Tom & Enid Schantz

The editors wish to thank James Norman Schmidt's friends in Athens, Ohio, and, most importantly, his son Paul Schmidt of Mexico City, for their help in putting together this biography.