Notable Oct 15 Birthdays

October 15th sure is a popular day for birthdays in mysterydom:

• Ed McBain/Evan Hunter, of 87th Precinct and Blackboard Jungle fame: b. Oct 15, 1926, who left us in 2005.
  

• Elizabeth Daly, the creator of sleuth and bibliophile Henry Gamadge: b. Oct 15, 1878 (d. 1967).
  

• Art critic and Smart Set editor Willard Huntington Wright, better known as S.S. Van Dine, the creator of detective Philo Vance, b. Oct 15, 1888 (d. 1939).
  

Scribner's famed Max Perkins was Van Dine's editor. William Powell played Philo Vance in several films, such as The Canary Murder Case; go here for photos from these movies. You can read Van Dine's well-known Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories from 1928 (modern readers may disagree with some of his assertions, such as never featuring a love story in the plot or the detective as the culprit).