Clair Huffaker cover gallery

Clair Walter Huffaker was born in Magna, Utah, on 24 September 1926, the son of Clair Huffaker (1908-1960) and his wife Orlean Bird (1907-1965). Huffaker grew up in Salt Lake City He served in the Navy during World War II in the South Pacific and after the war became an Honours student at Princetown and then at Columbia University in New York. Before going on to study at several continental universities, Huffaker joined Time, Inc. and wrote for both Time and Life. After his return to New York he edited several magazines at one time before becoming a freelance writer.

Author of over 200 stories, numerous feature and magazine articles in pulp and men's adventure magazines. No less than seven of his novels were made into major motion pictures: Seven Ways from Sundown (1960 starring Audie Murphy), Flaming Star (1960 starring Elvis Presley), Posse from Hell (1960 starring Audie Murphy), Rio Conchos (1964 starring Stuart Whitman) and The War Wagon (1967), starring John Wayne. Huffaker also wrote two further John Wayne movies: The Comancheros (1961) and  Hellfighters (1968); he also wrote the original screenplay Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966). Huffaker's later screenplays include One Hundred Rifles (1969), Flap (1970 starring Anthony Quinn), adapted from his later novel Nobody Loves a Drunken Indian (1967), The Deserter (1971) and Chino (1976).

Huffaker also wrote for television series such as Rawhide, The Virginian and Bonanza.

Clair was married twice: first to Winifred Dutton Moore in 1951, with whom he had a son, Lance Clark Huffaker (1952-1980); and secondly to Joyce Lousin Rainboldt in 1959. He died of an aneurysm in Los Angeles, California, on 2 April 1990, aged 63.

PUBLICATIONS

Rider from Thunder Mountain (Greenwich, Conn., Fawcett Publications/Crest Books 193, Nov 1957)
Frederick Muller/Gold Medal Books 358, 1959, 140pp, 2/6.

Badge for a Gunfighter (Greenwich, Conn., Fawcett Publications, 1957)
Gold Medal Books 223, 1957, 126pp.
Futura 0860-07040-9, 1974, 126pp.

Badman (Greenwich, Conn., Fawcett Publications, 1957)
Gold Medal Books 225, 1958, 128pp.
as The War Wagon, Futura 0860-07037-9, 1975, 128pp, 30p.

Guns of Rio Conchos (Greenwich, Conn., Fawcett Publications/Gold Medal Books 733, Jan 1958)
Frederick Muller/Gold Medal Books 337, 1959, 142pp.
as Rio Conchos, Futura 0860-07038-7, 1975, 126pp.

Cowboy (adapted from the screenplay by Edmund H. North and Reminiscences of a Cowboy by Frank Harris, Greenwich, Conn., Fawcett Publications/Gold Medal Books 736, Jan 1958)
Gold Medal Books 271, 1958, 143pp.

Posse from Hell (Greenwich, Conn., Fawcett Publications, 1958)
Gold Medal Books 362, 1959, 137pp.
Futura 0860-07168-5, 1975, 124pp, 35p.

Flaming Lance (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1958; Greenwich, Conn., Fawcett Publications/Crest Books s421, 1960)
as Flaming Star, Futura 0860-07039-5, 1975, 126pp, 30p.

Seven Ways from Sundown (Greenwich, Conn., Fawcett Publications/Crest Books 398, 1960)
Futura 0860-07105-7, 1974, 124pp.