Horace Stanley McCoy (April 14, 1897 – December 15, 1955) was an American writer whose mostly hardboiled stories took place during the Great Depression. His best-known novel is They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1935), which was made into a movie of the same name in 1969, fourteen years after McCoy's death.
Early life
McCoy was born in Pegram, Tennessee. During World War I he served in the United States Army Air Corps, flying several missions behind enemy lines as a bombardier and reconnaissance photographer. He was wounded and received the Croix de Guerre for heroism from the government of France. In the late 1920s he began getting stories published in various pulp mystery magazines. He described the acting experience in a Dallas Morning News piece. His acting was good enough for him to be cast in the leads in Molnár's Liliom (1928), and Sidney Howard's They Knew What They Wanted (1929). A 1928 column in the Morning News described McCoy as "a sort of enfant terrible of journalism and amateur theatricals in Dallas."
California
When Oliver Hinsdell, director of the Dallas Little Theater from 1923 to 1931, was engaged as an acting coach for MGM, McCoy followed him to Hollywood to become a film actor.
The film Bad for Each Other (1953), for which McCoy received co-screenwriting credit (with Irving Wallace), was based on his novel Scalpel (1952) which was uncredited.
McCoy was also recognized for the story, in the closing credits, of the Samantha Crawford character debut in the Maverick television series titled "According to Hoyle" starring James Garner, Diane Brewster and Leo Gordon.
Personal life
He was married to Helen Vinmont McCoy (1913–1964), with whom he had two sons, Horace Stanley McCoy II and Peter McCoy; and a daughter, Amanda McCoy. He died in Beverly Hills, California of a heart attack.