Dean Davis standing outside the building that housed the Greenfield Publishing offices in Los Angeles. This photo was used on the back cover of the first three King Bennett novels.

Dean Davis was born on May 1st, 1926 in Chichester, Pennsylvania. He was an only child. Chichester was a small town and Dean spent much of his time alone either reading or playing with the few friends that he had. His father, Lawrence, worked as an aeronautical engineer and his mother, Emily, was a dance instructor. In the fall of 1935 Lawrence was offered a lucrative job with an aviation company in California and the family headed toward the West Coast.

After relocating in Los Angeles a childhood that was spent alone most of the time got lonelier. His father kept long hours at the office with the new job. Being so close to the entertainment capital of the world, his mother opened up a small dance studio. Most of her time was at her studio usually dragging Dean along. To pass the time by Dean would frequent a billiards parlor that was located above his mother's studio. The owner of the place wasn't too fond of having a kid wandering around the joint, but after Dean's mother promised free tap lessons to the man's three daughters, things went smooth.

It was here that Dean received the education of a lifetime. He met the rough and tumble crowd that would fill his novels later in life. The pool sharks also taught him the fine art of billiards. He seemed to be a natural at it, eventually beating many of the regulars. That talent would follow him and grow in his adult years when he would be Las Vegas City Champ for five years straight.

Reading, and soon to be writing, was a passion of Dean's. Damon Runyon was by far his favorite author. The money he won from pool games fed his comic book and pulp magazine habit. He also spent much of his time at the movies.

As Dean entered his teens he didn't remain as much of a loner. Since he took drum lessons from the age of eight, his playing was pretty good. He joined a small band called the Valpone Quartet that netted him a few female admirers. He loved the new attention. The quartet consisted of four neighborhood friends and Dean soon became one of those guys who knew everyone. Occasionally his mother allowed dance parties at her studio. It worked out well because Dean met new people and his mother got some new students. Being his mother's prized pupil since birth, Dean could also cut a mean rug. He still managed to spend a large amount of his time reading and honing his pool skills.

Nothing really notable happened to Dean, until 1941, when two major events would change his life. The first was sneaking into the premiere of Citizen Kane and the second was the outbreak of World War II.

On May 8th, 1941 Los Angeles was all a buzz with the premiere of Orson Welles' soon to be classic, Citizen Kane. New York held its premiere a week before and even though William Randolph Hearst was on a crusade to have the movie banned it was still touted as the must-go-to event of the season. Tickets had been unavailable for weeks as Tinsletown's elite pulled their strings and called in their favors.

Being only 15 at the time, Dean didn't have the clout to score a ticket, but that didn't stop him from getting in. One of the normal behind the scene routines at the theatre was the projectionist and his assistant ordering Chinese take-out before many of the big premieres. Dean knew the restaurant's delivery boy and slipped him a couple of bucks to let him deliver the order. He was let in the back door and sent up to the projection booth to drop off the food. Instead of leaving, Dean ducked behind a curtain in one of the balconies. He was well prepared with a full order of General Tso's Chicken and green tea that he bought himself and carried in with the original order.

Dean spoke about that memorable night. "That was probably the ballsiest thing I ever did in my life up to that point. I've since surpassed that feat many times, but for being 15, this was pretty funny. Here I was holed up in a balcony behind this huge velvet curtain eating some of the best Chinese food I ever had with a perfect view of the screen. One of the guys I recognized sitting in my balcony was Tyrone Power. The people he was with were all dressed to the nines and wreaking of perfume and cologne. That 'clash of the scents' helped disguise my presence because Tyrone kept looking around and asking, 'Do you smell Chinese food?'

"Citizen Kane is definitely one of the best movies I ever saw. It totally floored me! The imagery used was incredible. That movie single-handedly motivated me to make my writing more starkly visual. I was fascinated by Orson Welles' brilliance of scene transitioning and plot juxtapostioning. I must have seen it ten times by the end of that week."

"At the end of the premiere I just left with the crowd. I saw Tyrone Power in the lobby, walked right up to him and gave him my last egg roll. I casually commented, "Rosebud...who knew?'"

"As I walked outside reporters were scrambling to try and get the opinions of the audience. Pathe Newsreel pulled me off to the side and asked what I thought of the film. I expounded greatly on its virtues. When they asked me my name I told them I was Buckwheat from the Little Rascals without my makeup."

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December, Dean's life with his parents became practically non-existent. His father was a member of the design team for the B-17 bomber and spent most of the next few years travelling throughout Europe as a field consultant. His mother joined a USO show as a dancer and traveled around the country. Dean stayed with an aunt that moved to Los Angeles a year earlier. He would never live with his parents again.

On a rainy day in October of 1953 Otto Greenfield walked in to Dean's pool hall hangout with his brother Kevin to shoot a few games. Dean knew who Otto was from frequenting the Greenfield Publishing offices trying to submit some stories for their pulp magazine, Crime Scene. He struck up a game with Otto. If Dean lost he would give Otto fifty bucks. If Dean won, Otto would print one of his stories. Greenfield fancied himself a pool shark and thought it was an easy bet. Unfortunately, he never got a shot off because Dean cleared the rack. The next day Dean handed in a manuscript for a hardboiled story titled, Up the Creek. Dean proved his skills with a solid story and Greenfield kept him on as a regular.

The rest of the highlights in Dean's life are peppered throughout the other sections of this web page.