SLESAR, Henry

(1927-)

   US writer who began his career in advertising. He started to publish sf with "The Brat" for Imaginative Tales in 1955. Of his several hundred stories, about a third have been sf or fantasy, most of them appearing in his first decade as a writer; many are as by O.H. Leslie. He is best known for his work in the mystery field, with a number of thrillers from The Gray Flannel Shroud (1958), which won an Edgar, onwards. Among them was a borderline-sf tale, The Bridge of Lions (1963); closely connected to this kind of work was his stint as headwriter for the US daytime suspense serial, The Edge of Night, in the late 1950s and1960s. Other tv work included 24 episodes for Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-61), The Virtue Affair for The MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. in 1965, and at least 100 additional scripts, many of them fantasy or sf. His one sf book has been the novelization of TWENTY MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957; 1957), published as \#1 in the abortive AMAZING STORIES SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS series.

   JC/PN

   See also: PSI POWERS.