Ludlum, Robert

Ludlum, Robert (Jonathan Ryder, Michael Shepherd, pen names)

(1927– ) writer, actor; born in New York City. He served in the Marine Corps (1944–46) and studied at Wesleyan (B.A. 1951). He became a Broadway and television actor (1952–60), and a theater producer in New Jersey (1957–70) and New York City (1960–69). With the publication of his first espionage novel, The Scarlatti Inheritance (1971), he became a successful full-time writer of suspense fiction. He lived in Hartford, Conn.