Behn, Noel

Biography

Noel Behn was a novelist, screenwriter, theatrical producer, and actor who spent his whole creative life in Manhattan. A graduate of Stanford University, class of 1950, Behn was active in the New York Theater Community for more than 50 years as the producing director of the Cherry Lane Theater, a pioneer of the off Broadway theater movement. Among the influential works premiered there under his direction were Sean O’Casey’s "Purple Dust" and Samuel Beckett’s "Endgame". His first novel, The Kremlin Letter (1966), based on his experiences in the United States Counterintelligence Corps, was made into a popular film by John Huston in 1970 which starred Orson Welles. He later wrote The Big Stick-up at Brink’s (1977), a nonfiction account of the 1950 Brink’s Robbery in Boston, subsequently made into the film The Brink’s Job. In 1991 Noel Behn was hired as a consultant for the popular TV series, Homocide: Life on the Street, for which he periodically wrote scripts. His latest book, Lindbergh: The Crime (1994) is currently being developed as a feature film.

From the guide to the Noel Behn papers, >circa 1950-1998, (Department of Special Collections and University Archives)