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Frank M. Robinson

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This article is about the science fiction and techno-thriller writer. For the man who named Coca-Cola, see Frank Mason Robinson. For other people named Frank Robinson, see Frank Robinson (disambiguation).

Frank M. Robinson
Born
Frank Malcolm Robinson

(1926-08-09)August 9, 1926
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedJune 30, 2014(2014-06-30) (aged 87)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
NationalityAmerican

Frank M. Robinson (August 9, 1926 – June 30, 2014) was an American science fiction and techno-thriller writer.

Biography

Born in Chicago, Illinois.[1] Robinson was the son of a check forger.[2] He started out in his teens working as a copy boy for International News Service and then became an office boy for Ziff Davis.[2] He was drafted into the Navy for World War II, and when his tour was over attended Beloit College, where he majored in physics, graduating in 1950. Because he could find no work as a writer, he ended up back in the Navy to serve in Korea, where he kept writing, read a lot, and published in Astounding magazine.

After the Navy, he attended graduate school in journalism, then worked for a Chicago-based Sunday supplement. Soon he switched to Science Digest, where he worked from 1956 to 1959. From there, he moved into men's magazines: Rogue (1959–65) and Cavalier (1965–66). In 1969, Playboy asked him to take over the Playboy Advisor column. He remained there until 1973, when he left to write full-time.

After moving to San Francisco in the 1970s, Robinson, who was gay, was a speechwriter for gay politician Harvey Milk; he had a small role in the film Milk.[3][4] After Milk's assassination, Robinson was co-executor, with Scott Smith, of Milk's last will and testament.[5]

Robinson is the author of 16 books, the editor of two others, and has penned numerous articles.[2] Three of his novels have been made into movies. The Power (1956) was a supernatural science fiction and government conspiracy novel about people with superhuman skills, filmed in 1968 as The Power. The technothriller The Glass Inferno, co-written with Thomas N. Scortia, was combined with Richard Martin Stern's The Tower to produce the 1974 movie The Towering Inferno. The Gold Crew, also co-written Scortia, was a nuclear threat thriller filmed as an NBC miniseries and re-titled The Fifth Missile.

He collaborated on several other works with Scortia, including The Prometheus Crisis, The Nightmare Factor, and Blow-Out. More recent works include The Dark Beyond the Stars (1991), and an updated version of The Power (2000), which closely followed Waiting (1999), a novel with similar themes to The Power. His novel[needs update] is a medical thriller about organ theft called The Donor.[6]

In 2009 he was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.[7]

References

  1. ^ Smith, Curtis C. (1981), Twentieth Century Science Fiction Writers, St. Martin's, p. 452, ISBN 0-312-82420-3 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ a b c Frank M. Robinson's Official Website, retrieved December 5, 2008
  3. ^ Duin, Steve (March 11, 2008). "Van Sant's "Milk" helps writer visit the past". The Oregonian.
  4. ^ Davis, Andrew (November 19, 2008). "Frank Robinson: On Harvey Milk". Windy City Times.
  5. ^ "Scott Smith — Harvey Milk Friend". SFGate. February 7, 1995.
  6. ^ Locus Publications. "Locus Online News » Frank M. Robinson (1926-2014)". Locusmag.com. Retrieved June 30, 2014.
  7. ^ http://www.glhalloffame.org/index.pl?page=inductees&todo=year
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