Richard Rayner
Encyclopedia
Early life
He was born on December 15, 1955 in the northern city of BradfordBradford
Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...
. Rayner attended schools in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
before studying philosophy and law at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
. He has worked as an editor at Time Out Magazine, in London, and later on the literary magazine Granta
Granta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
, then based in Cambridge.
First book
Rayner is the author of nine books. His first, Los Angeles Without A Map, was published in 1988. Part-fiction, part-travelogue, this was turned into a movie L.A. Without a MapL.A. Without a Map
L.A. Without a Map is a 1998 film directed by Mika Kaurismäki and written by Mika Kaurismäki and Richard Rayner, based on his novel. The film stars David Tennant, Vinessa Shaw, Julie Delpy, Vincent Gallo, and Johnny Depp It is a French, British and Finnish production.Also known under the titles:...
(for which Rayner co-wrote the screenplay with director Mika Kaurismaki
Mika Kaurismäki
Mika Juhani Kaurismäki is a Finnish film director.He is the elder brother of Aki Kaurismäki, and the father of Maria Kaurismäki who graduated from Tampere School of Art and Media in 2008 with her movie Sideline.Mika Kaurismäki has lived in Brazil since approximately 1992 and has made several...
) starring David Tennant
David Tennant
David Tennant is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in theatre, including a widely praised Hamlet, Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in the 2005 TV serial Casanova and as Barty Crouch, Jr...
, Vinessa Shaw
Vinessa Shaw
Vinessa Elizabeth Shaw is an American actress and model. Shaw has starred in numerous motion pictures since the early 1990s, and is probably most well known for her performances in Disney's 1993 Halloween film Hocus Pocus, Ladybugs, the 2006 remake of Wes Craven's horror picture The Hills Have...
, Julie Delpy
Julie Delpy
Julie Delpy is a French-American actress, director, screenwriter, and singer-songwriter. She studied filmmaking at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and has directed, written, and acted in more than 30 films, including Europa Europa , The Voyager , Three Colors: White , Before Sunrise...
, Vincent Gallo
Vincent Gallo
Vincent Gallo is an Italian-American film director and actor. Though he has had minor roles in mainstream films such as Goodfellas, he is most associated with independent movies, including Buffalo '66, which he wrote, directed, did the music for and starred in; The Brown Bunny, which he also...
, and, in an uncredited
part, Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor, producer and musician. He has won the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild award for Best Actor. Depp rose to prominence on the 1980s television series 21 Jump Street, becoming a teen idol...
.
1996 – present
In 1996, Rayner published The Blue Suit, a memoir about his early life that won an EsquireEsquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
Non-Fiction Award in the UK, and was described as 'a beguiling portrait of the artist as a writer and a crook' by the New York Times. Novels like The Cloud Sketcher and Devil's Wind followed. Murder Book, another novel, grew out of a time that Rayner spent riding with the Los Angeles Police Department
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
. Most recently, in 2009, Rayner has published A Bright And Guilty Place, a non-fiction historical narrative set in Los Angeles in the late 1920s and early 1930s, featuring various true-life tabloid crimes of the era.
Rayner is a prolific journalist and short-story writer. He has published in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, The Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, Esquire, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
and Granta Magazine among others. He wrote about the Los Angeles Riots for Granta Magazine, and about the post-Rodney-King Los Angeles Police Department for the New York Times Magazine. His non-fiction work for the New Yorker has included a profile of Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
, and a story about how a Finnish entomologist helped put leaves back on pest-ravaged Beijing trees in time for the 2008 Olympics.
Currently Rayner writes a monthly column entitled Paperback Writers for the Los Angeles Times. His work has been translated into many languages. He is married to a Finn, Paivi Suvilehto, and the couple have two sons. He lives in Santa Monica
Santa Mônica
Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...
.
Novels
- Los Angeles Without A MapL.A. Without a MapL.A. Without a Map is a 1998 film directed by Mika Kaurismäki and written by Mika Kaurismäki and Richard Rayner, based on his novel. The film stars David Tennant, Vinessa Shaw, Julie Delpy, Vincent Gallo, and Johnny Depp It is a French, British and Finnish production.Also known under the titles:...
(1988 - adapted for film in 1998) - The Elephant (1991)
- Murder Book (1998)
- The Cloud Sketcher (2001)
- The Devil's Wind (2005)
Non-Fiction
- The Blue Suit (1995), Review: "Portrait Of The Artist As A Writer And A Crook" by Michuko Kakutani, New York Times, October 27, 1995)
- Drake's Fortune (2002) about the con artist Oscar HartzellOscar HartzellOscar Hartzell was an American con man who convinced many people in North America to join him in a fraudulent lawsuit against the British government. The original idea did not originate with him, but rather was a continuation of a previous scam.Hartzell was a farmer's son from Madison County, Iowa...
- The Associates: Four Capitalists Who Created California (2008) features profiles of Collis Huntington, Charles CrockerCharles CrockerCharles Crocker was an American railroad executive.-Early years:Crocker was born in Troy, New York, to a modest family and moved to an Indiana farm at age 14. He soon became independent, working on several farms, a sawmill, and at an iron forge. In 1845 he founded a small, independent iron...
, Mark HopkinsMark HopkinsMark Hopkins was one of four principal investors who formed the Central Pacific Railroad along with Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, and Collis Huntington in 1861.-Early years:...
and Leland StanfordLeland StanfordAmasa Leland Stanford was an American tycoon, industrialist, robber baron, politician and founder of Stanford University.-Early years:... - A Bright And Guilty Place (2009) about the murderer of Los Angeles underworld figure Charles H. CrawfordCharles H. CrawfordCharles H. Crawford was an American political figure. In the 1920s, his loosely organized crime syndicate in Los Angeles, California was known as the “City Hall Gang.” Crawford was reportedly a model for some of Raymond Chandler’s villains.-Early years:In the early 1900s, Crawford operated...
Articles and short stories
- "Los Angeles" in The Best Of Granta Reportage, Granta Books, London (1993)
- "LAPC", New York Times Magazine, January 22, 1995
- "Existential Cowboy", New Yorker, May 18, 1998
- "Bug Wars", New Yorker, August 25, 2008
- "Channelling Ike", New Yorker, April 26, 2010 (revisits Stephen E. Ambrose plagiarism controversy)
External links
- Rayner's most recent book has a website
- Short story published in The New Yorker in 2007: "After The Movie"
- LA Times column, "Paperback Writers"