Elmore John Leonard, Jr., popularly known as mystery and western writer Elmore Leonard, was born in New Orleans on October 11, 1925. English was an early favorite subject and Leonard earned a Ph.D. in the subject from the University of Detroit in 1950. Prior to enrolling in college, Leonard served in the United States Naval Reserve from 1943 to 1946. Leonard wrote short stories and western novels as well as advertising and education film scripts. One of his most famous early short stories, "3:10 to Yuma," a western, was adapted to film in 1967. Leonard continued to publish both westerns and crime novels throughout the coming decades. In 1967, he began to write fulltime and received such… awards as the 1977 Western Writers of America award and the 1984 Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe award. His novel Hombre was judged one of the top 25 all-time westerns by the Western Writers of America. It was later adapted to film, starring Paul Newman. In both his westerns and mystery crime novels Leonard often chooses as his main character a person seemingly reserved who eventually seeks justice openly and concretely. Elmore Leonard has been married twice, to Beverly Claire Cline in 1949 and then to Joan Leanne Lancaster in 1979. He has two daughters and three sons. Leonard successfully conquered alcoholism in the 1970s; details of his struggle with the bottle appear in author Dennis Wholey's 1986 book The Courage to Change.