Edgar Wallace (56), author and newspaper editor in South Africa, dies in Hollywood.

Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace was born in London in 1875. His mother, unmarried and struggling to make a living, gave him up for adoption when he was nine years old.  At the age of 12, Wallace left school and held several menial jobs. He later joined the army and was posted to South Africa.  Disillusioned with army life, he began writing and publishing songs and poetry. He soon left the army and became a full time writer. At the turn of the century Wallace worked as a correspondent, first for Reuters and later the Daily Mail. In 1903, Wallace, now married to Ethel Violet King, returned to England. He signed with Hodder and Stoughton publishers in 1921. The move catapulted his writing to a new level and broadened his readership. He became known as the writer who could write a novel in three days -- which he managed to do with the help of a wax cylinder, which worked like a Dictaphone and a typing assistant. By the time of his death in 1932, Wallace was living in Hollywood and had become a sought after screen writer. Throughout his career, Wallace wrote countless novels, poems, plays, screenplays and short stories. His best known work is the unfinished screenplay for the Hollywood film King Kong.