BRAND, MAX

(1893–1944)

Born Frederick Faust, Max Brand is perhaps the most prolific Western author of all time, writing over 400 novels, nearly all Westerns. He died on the battlefield in World War II, but his estate had such a backlog of unpublished novels that even today a new, unpublished Max Brand Western comes out about every two months. In his last years before the war, Brand worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter, particularly on the popular Dr. Kildare movies based on his medical novels. Over 40 Max Brand novels have been adapted to film, including three films based on his novel Destry Rides Again: one starring Tom Mix (1932) and two directed by George Marshall—one starring Jimmy Stewart (1939) and another titled Destry, starring Audie Murphy(1954). Only the Tom Mix version remains relatively faithful to Brand’s original novel.