Today would have been the 82nd birthday of Salvatore Alberto Lombini. Otherwise known as Evan Hunter, Ezra Hannon,  Richard Marsten…he used a lot of pen names but his main Nom De Plume  was Ed McBain. He wrote over 50 novels in the 87th Precinct series as well as 9 in the Matthew Hope  novels.

He wrote the screenplays for The Birds and Blackboard Jungle  among several others (Two Columbo episodes were adapted from his novels also. Even if you don’t think you know him, you’ve probably seen something by him)

Quite often in his novels, characters will refer to October 15th as “The birth date of great men” which as a kid I thought was actually a saying and it felt pretty cool to have that birthday.  It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise, no, he obviously was just born then too.

Also born on this day- Our musical guest Ginuwine. Take it away sir.