Gentleman Overboard

Lewis was born in New York City in 1909. After working as a reporter in Shanghai, China, he returned to the US in 1933 and began writing fiction while working as a reporter for the New York Journal. In 1937, he published his first novel, Gentleman Overboard, a black comedy about a Wall Street banker who falls overboard while travelling on a freighter in the South Pacific and drowns. Time magazine's reviewer wrote of the book, "His hair-raising little tour de force is the more effective for being so quietly, matter-of-factly written." He published two other novels then moved to Hollywood to work for 20th Century Fox. He earned an Academy Award nomination for his original story for the 1947 film "It Happened on 5th Avenue", but was then blacklisted for his political activities. He returned to New York in 1949 and was working as a contributing editor of Time magazine when he died of a heart attack.