James Warner Bellah (September 14, 1899 – September 22, 1976) was an American Western author from the 1930s to the 1950s. His pulp-fiction writings on cavalry and Indians were published in paperbacks or serialized in the Saturday Evening Post.
InWorld War I, Bellah enlisted in the Canadian Army, and served as a pilot in the 117th Squadron of Great Britain's Royal Flying Corps. These experiences formed the basis of his 1928 novel Gods of Yesterday.
For several years after the war, he was a writer for advertising firms and instructor in English at Columbia.[3] In the 1930s he worked as a journalist for the New York Post.
His short story "Spanish Man's Grave" is considered by some to be one of the finest American Western stories ever written. His last script was A Thunder of Drums. Bellah's depiction of the Apache is protested by some and lauded as realistic by others.
In the early stages of his career, Elmore Leonard modelled his style closely after Bellah's writing.[4]
He died of a heart attack in Los Angeles during a visit to his friend James Francis, Cardinal McIntyre, Archbishop of Los Angeles. His manuscripts are stored at Columbia University and Boston University.[5][6]
These Frantic Years, New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1927
The Sons of Cain, New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1928
The Gods of Yesterday, New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1928
Dancing Lady, New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1932
White Piracy, New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1933
The Brass Gong Tree, New York: Appleton-Century Co., 1936
This is the Town, New York: Appleton-Century Co., 1937
7 Must Die, New York: Appleton-Century Co., 1938
The Bones of Napoleon, New York: Appleton-Century Co., 1940
Ward Twenty: a Realistic Novel, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1946
Rear Guard, Popular Library (New York, NY), 1950 (First published as The White Invader, in The Saturday Evening Post; the basis of the 1954 film The Command).
The Apache, New York: Gold Medal Books, 1951 (First published as The Apache CurseinThe Saturday Evening Post).
Divorce, New York: Popular Library Books, 1952 (A shorter version first published in April 1939 in CosmopolitanasYou Marry Once!)
Ordeal at Blood River, New York: Ballantine Books, 1959 (First published in The Saturday Evening Post).
Sergeant Rutledge, New York, Bantam Books, 1960, based on a screenplay by Bellah and Willis Goldbeck.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, New York, Pocket Books, 1962 based on a screenplay by Bellah and Willis Goldbeck and the original story by Dorothy M. Johnson�.
Thunder of Drums, New York, Bantam Books, 1961, based on a screenplay by Bellah.
Fort Starke, Civil War and Other Military Stories[edit]
Fort Starke Stories Collected in Reveille published by Fawcett Gold Medal in 1962 and Massacre published by Lion 1950:
Command, The Saturday Evening Post June 8, 1946 (Basis for A Thunder of Drums)
By the Beard of Saint Crispin, The Saturday Evening Post August 3, 1946
West of the Paradise, The Saturday Evening Post September 7, 1946
Massacre, The Saturday Evening Post February 22, 1947 (basis for Fort Apache)[7]
Spanish Man's Grave, The Saturday Evening Post May 3, 1947
The Devil at Crazy Man, The Saturday Evening Post June 21, 1947
Mission with No Record, The Saturday Evening Post September 27, 1947 (Basis for Rio Grande)
Lash of Fear, The Saturday Evening Post November 8, 1947
Big Hunt, The Saturday Evening Post December 6, 1947 (Basis for She Wore a Yellow Ribbon)
The Last Fight, The Saturday Evening Post October 16, 1948
Stage for Elkhorn, The Saturday Evening Post November 20, 1948
Collected only in Massacre:
War Party, The Saturday Evening Post June 19, 1948 (Basis for She Wore a Yellow Ribbon)
Flint Cohill also appears in Ordeal on Blood River, Bellah's final serial for The Saturday Evening Post published Oct 17, Oct 24, Oct 31, Nov 7, & November 14, 1959, and published in paperback by Ballantine in 1959.
Civil War Stories:
Tales of the Valorous Virginians—First Blood at Harper's Ferry, The Saturday Evening Post May 9, 1953
Tales of the Valorous Virginians: Stuart's Charge at Bull Run, The Saturday Evening Post May 16, 1953
Tales of the Valorous Virginians: Slaughter at Ball's Bluff, The Saturday Evening Post May 23, 1953
Tales of the Valorous Virginians: Jackson Got Licked at Kernstown, The Saturday Evening Post May 30, 1953
Tales of the Valorous Virginians— How Stonewall Came Back, The Saturday Evening Post June 6, 1953; Tales of the Valorous Virginians.
Tales of the Valorous Virginians: The Secret of the Seven Days, The Saturday Evening Post June 13, 1953
Collected in The Valiant Virginians published by Ballantine in 1953.
Other Military Stories collected in Fighting Man. USA
Spanish Man's Grave – The Saturday Evening Post, May 3, 1947
Day of Terror – The Saturday Evening Post, November 17, 1956
While the General Slept – The American Magazine Mar 1939
The Heart of Guinevere – The Saturday Evening Post, December 14, 1935
Fear – The Saturday Evening Post November 6, 1926—Bellah's debut in that publication.
Pirate of Nantucket – The Saturday Evening Post, June 27, 1942
Death of an Admiral – Cosmopolitan July 1961
Soldier's Boy – The Saturday Evening Post, November 23, 1957,
Collected in There Will Be War (Jerry Pournelle, ed.) published by Tor in 1986:
Spanish Man's Grave – The Saturday Evening Post, May 3, 1947,
This was the only non-science fiction story in this anthology about future war.
^Columbia College (Columbia University). Office of Alumni Affairs and Development; Columbia College (Columbia University) (1967–1969). Columbia College today. Columbia University Libraries. New York, N.Y. : Columbia College, Office of Alumni Affairs and Development.
Schoenberger, Nancy (2018). Wayne and Ford: The Films, the Friendship, and the Forging of an American Hero. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 70. ISBN9780307744159. Bellah wrote the screenplays and novelizations for two of John Ford's films in the early 1960s. In particular Sergeant Rutledge (1960) is considered pioneering in its story of a black cavalry soldier. Nancy Schoenberger interviewed Bellah's son, James Bellah Jr., for her book. He said of his father that "His politics were just a little right of Attila. He was a fascist, a racist, and a world-class bigot."
