Martin Flavin(1883-1967)
- Writer
Playwright Martin Flavin was born in San Francisco and moved with his
mother to Chicago at an early age when his father died. He attended
college there and took an interest in dramatics. Upon graduation he got
a job on a newspaper and supplemented his income by writing short
stories for magazines. He met with a degree of success in that endeavor
but couldn't make enough money to devote his full time to a writing
career. His mother's family had a manufacturing business in the Midwest
and Flavin decided to go into the family business, but always with an
eye toward going back to writing. After 12 years as an executive in the
family company he began writing again, but this time as a playwright
instead of a short-story writer.
In 1923 one of his plays, "Children of the Moon", was produced on Broadway, and three years later Flavin left the family business to become a full-time playwright. His most famous play, "The Criminal Code" (1929), was inspired by a visit he made to San Quentin Prison in California and the conditions he saw there (it was later made into a classic gangster film, Le code criminel (1931)).
In 1923 one of his plays, "Children of the Moon", was produced on Broadway, and three years later Flavin left the family business to become a full-time playwright. His most famous play, "The Criminal Code" (1929), was inspired by a visit he made to San Quentin Prison in California and the conditions he saw there (it was later made into a classic gangster film, Le code criminel (1931)).
