Soldier, Newspaper Editor and Publisher, Author, Movie Scenario Reader, Public Speaker, Prison Guard, Nightwatchman/Guard/Detective, Physiotherapist
Born February 10, 1885, Miles City, Montana
Died August 27, 1945, Los Angeles County, California
Bryan Irvine was born on February 10, 1885, in Miles City, Montana, to Thomas Howard Irvine, at one time a county sheriff, and Mary Elizabeth Irvine. His uncle and presumably his namesake was Bryan Irvine, a Montana pioneer and a miner in the area of Butte. Bryan Irvine the younger enlisted in the U.S. Army on the day before his twenty-first birthday, February 9, 1906. He was the editor and publisher of the Darby Record in Darby, Montana, in 1914 and thereabouts. In 1918, when he filled out his draft card, he was working as a prison guard at Montana State Prison and living in Deer Lodge, Montana.
On September 12, 1908, in Powell County, Montana, Bryan Irvine married Bertha Wood. Together they had two sons, Thomas Ainsworth Irvine, who died in 1909 at age one, and Harl Wood Irvine. Bertha W. Irvine died on December 1, 1939, in Santa Monica, California. She had been an invalid for more than twenty years. Irvine's second wife was Nancy N. Irvine.
From 1917 to 1937, Irvine had dozens of stories in pulp magazines, mostly in Detective Story Magazine (later Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine) and Western Story Magazine, but also in Ace-High Magazine, Argosy Allstory Weekly, Far West Stories, and 10 Story Book. Irvine fictionalized his father as the Tiger Kid in "'Tiger Kid's' Trail," published in Western Story Magazine, February 12, 1921. "My father was at one time considered the best six-shooter shot in Montana," Irvine explained with just pride. Irvine had four stories in Weird Tales from 1923 to 1927. "The Ghost Guard" in the inaugural issue, March 1923, was his first.
Sometime between 1918 and 1921 or so, Irvine moved to California and became involved in the movie business. He had an article in The Photodramatist, subtitled "The Scenario Writers Magazine," in November 1921. Theodore Le Berthon (1892-1960), who also wrote for Weird Tales, had an article in that same issue. In 1922, Irvine worked as a reader on the staff of Thomas H. Ince Studios. Known as "the Father of the Western," Thomas H. Ince (1880-1924) died prematurely, either on board William Randolph Hearst's yacht or shortly after being carried ashore on a stretcher. Ince and his wife were Theosophists. She had his body cremated as they had agreed.
Bryan Irvine lived in Santa Monica, Venice, Los Angles, and possibly other cities in southern California. He was the president and member of the Monrovia Writers Club and a member of or associated with the Pasadena Writers Club. Other members of the Monrovia Writers Club and their associates included (in 1925): William and Ellavera Nelson, Jack and Helen Jarmuth, Mrs. Moss Renaker (a designer of pottery), Wallace Blakey, Mrs. Manton Barnes, Mrs. George Wilcox, O.H. Barnhill, Paul Rockwood, Charles Davis, Harve Wilson, Arthur Zimmerman, Scott Way and Isabel Stewart Way, S.J. Ryan, Elizabeth Pingree, Florence McAvoy, and A.W. Macy. Jack Jarmuth wrote the intertitles for The Jazz Singer (1927). Mrs. Moss Renaker was a designer of pottery. Isabel Stewart Way was a very prolific author of Western romances and other fiction and nonfiction in pulp magazines, slick magazines, and newspapers. I feel certain that other writers on this list had their own accomplishments of note.
Bryan Irvine was well suited for work as an author of Westerns and detective stories. His family were early settlers in Montana and he spent his childhood and early adulthood in Big Sky Country. He also worked as a prison guard and was the proprietor of Irvine Patrol Service in southern California during the 1920s. A contemporary newspaper article explained: "He prowls about the street at night, safeguarding local business houses, seeing that lights and gas are turned off, doors locked and premises protected from marauders. But while he is prowling about, he is busy thinking up plots for fiction stories [. . .]." (From the Venice, California, Evening Vanguard, July 30, 1928, page 1.)
In 1930, Irvine was living in Los Angeles and working as a fiction writer. Ten years later, he was newly married after the death of his first wife and working as a physiotherapist, also in Los Angeles. Bryan Irvine died on August 27, 1945, in Los Angeles County. He was just sixty years old.
Bryan Irvine's Stories in Weird Tales
"The Ghost Guard" (Mar. 1923)
"Shades" (July/Aug. 1923)
"The Great Adventure" (Apr. 1924)
"The Crooked Smile" (May 1927)
Further Reading
"Six-Shooter Shot: Subject of Magazine Sketch Is Well Known Here" in Ravalli [Montana] Republic, June 3, 1921, page 1+.
Bryan Irvine's Story:
"The Ghost Guard" is a ghost story and one of vengeance dealt from beyond the grave. It's pretty conventional, pretty predictable, and I'm afraid pretty unremarkable. One interesting thing about it, considering the author's resume, is that it is set in a prison, one of the main characters being a prison guard, another an inmate, and a third the captain of the guard.
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| A postcard of Montana State Prison, Deer Lodge, Montana, date unknown. In "The Ghost Guard" by Bryan Irvine, there is a lot of wordage devoted to the layout of the fictional Granite River Prison, especially its towers. I suppose the ghost of Asa Shores haunts one of the structures shown in this picture. And could one of the men standing along the wall be Irvine? |
Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley
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