Horace Stanley McCoy (1897–1955) was an American novelist whose gritty, hardboiled novels documented the hardships Americans faced during the Depression and post-war periods. McCoy grew up in Tennessee and Texas; after serving in the air force during World War I, he worked as a journalist, film actor, and screenplay writer, and is author of five novels including They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1935) and the noir classic Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1948). Though underappreciated in his own time, McCoy is now recognized as a peer of Dashiell Hammett and James Cain. He died in Beverly Hills, California, in 1955.
Before the successful film adaptation of his novel They Shoot Horses, Dont They? , there were two failed attempts to bring the novel into a feature film. The first one, in 1936, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer purchased the rights to the novel as a potential starring vehicle for Jean Harlow and Clark Gable , but the project fell apart due to the sudden death of Jean Harlow in 1937. The second one, in 1950, when Charles Chaplin optioned the rights to the novel with Norman Lloyd as director and planned to cast his son Sydney Chaplin and newcomer Marilyn Monroe in the lead roles, but the project fell apart again because Chaplins re-entry permit was revoked while promoting Limelight (1952) .
