Charlotte Straus Plimmer (1916-1991)

Charlotte (Fingerhut) Straus Plimmer was born on March 29, 1916, in Cleveland, Ohio. She was on the staff of the Glenville High School Torch, the school newspaper, but maybe only after two more famous staff members--Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster--had graduated. She was two years younger than those two creators of Superman.

Charlotte Fingerhut married Clifford A. Straus in 1937 in Cleveland. She was working as a drama teacher at the time of the 1940 census. During the 1940s, as Charlotte Straus, she was school editor with Seventeen magazine and worked for the Women's National News Service. In July 1950, she married author and radio commentator Denis H. Plimmer (1914-1981) in Chelsea, London. Over the next three decades, the two collaborated on articles, books, radio scripts, and television scripts. Alone or with her husband, Charlotte Plimmer wrote:

• The Damn'd Master: An Authentic Account of an Eighteenth Century Slaver (history, 1971)
• Slavery: The Anglo-American Involvement (1973)
• London: A Visitor's Companion (travel, 1977)
• A Matter of Expediency: The Jettison of Admiral Sir Dudley North (history, 1978)
• Positive Beauty: A Practical Guide (1980)
• The Power Seekers (1983)
• Make-up Made Easy (1985)
• Food in Focus: A Portfolio from the World's Finest Food Photography (1988)

The Plimmers also wrote radio scripts together:

• Slavery-the Bloody Commerce (radio documentary, 1972)
• "The Penkovsky Riddle" (radio program, 1973)-Kept off the air because of a lawsuit involving copyright infringement
• A program on Dorothy Parker, on the radio program Women of Words (England, Feb. 1980; Australia, 1989)

As well as television scripts:

• For Sanctuary (1968): "Insurrection's Child" and "Diary and the Devil's Advocate"
• For Z Cars (1969): "You've Got to Keep Them Talking" (two-part episode)
• For Who-Dun-It (1969): "A Matter of Honour" (a script based on their story)
• For Thirty-Minute Theatre (1968-1969): "Standing by for Santa Claus," "The Chequers Manoeuvre," "Cause of Death," "Where Have They Gone, All the Little Children," ". . . . and Was Invited to Form a Government," and "A Formula for Treason"
• For The Adventures of Don Quick (1970): "Paradise Destruct"
• For BBC2 Playhouse (1976): "The Chauffeur"

Charlotte Plimmer died on February 25, 1991, in London. She was seventy-four years old.

Charlotte Fingerhut Straus Plimmer (1916-1991).

Thanks to The FictionMags Index and the Internet Movie Database for lists.

Text copyright 2022 Terence E. Hanley

The Shaver Mystery-Part Nine

P. Robert McKenna (1917-1990)

Patrick Robert "Bob" McKenna was born on September 8, 1917, in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, to Patrick Joseph McKenna and Elizabeth Mark (Flynn) McKenna. By the time of the 1940 census, he was already working as a radio announcer. In his career in radio, McKenna worked at WWSW, Pittsburgh (early 1940s), KDKA, Pittsburgh (mid 1940s), and WEDO, McKeesport (late 1940s). On September 10, 1941, just two days after his twenty-fourth birthday, he married Lenore A. Gedeon (1921-1979), a professional model and future president of the Pittsburgh Professional Models Society.

The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDb) has just one credit for Bob McKenna, a story co-written with Richard S. Shaver and entitled "Cult of the Witch Queen." It was published as a cover story in the July 1946 issue of Amazing Stories. According to an item in the Pittsburgh Press (May 21, 1946, p. 25), "Bob 'met' Dick Shaver of near Philadelphia, through letters to the editor and thus developed a story-writing team." "Cult of the Witch Queen" was their first collaboration. Another item from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Oct. 3, 1946, p. 8) states that the lead story in the November 1946 issue, "The Return of Sathanas," was also co-written by McKenna and Shaver. Although the ISFDb has McKenna's name on that story in one place, it doesn't in another, where it counts in the entry for McKenna himself. Never mind about that. The second newspaper item above also states that McKenna and Shaver had, as of October 1946, "collaborated on several adventure tales."

In 1949, McKenna was involved in a minor scandal. That may have prompted his move to California. By 1953, the McKennas were ranchers in Mill Valley in Marin County, north of San Francisco. They started a family there and may never have gone back home. Lenore McKenna died in 1979 at age fifty-eight. Bob McKenna survived her by nearly eleven years and died on April 4, 1990, I believe in San Jose, California. Presumably, McKenna wrote just a few--possibly only two--science fiction stories, and he has received credit for only one of those. But because of them or it, he had earned his spot in the history of the Shaver Mystery.

Amazing Stories, July 1946, with a cover story, "Cult of the Witch Queen," by Richard S. Shaver and Bob McKenna. The cover artist was Walter Parke.

1942

1950

Text copyright 2018, 2023 Terence E. Hanley