It’s the birthday of Raymond Chandler (1888-1959), creator of Philip Marlowe, a tough but honorable private detective exposing crime and corruption on the mean streets of L.A.

(Listen, see: I’ve visited L.A. but never the mean streets. My uncle only took me to the friendly, touristy ones, like Olvera Street, where I bought an entire Mexican outfit which my uncle then made me wear for my flight home to South Dakota. True story. And the whole way I carried a small wild palm tree that we’d dug up and potted. I must have looked like an idiot. The palm tree did not survive winter in South Dakota. I digress.)

Chandler was born in Chicago, Illinois, but his parents separated when he was seven and he moved to England with his mother, who was Anglo-Irish. Chandler became a British citizen but returned to California in 1912 to try to jump-start a writing career; he then served with the Canadian army during WWI. He was wounded in France and sent to England to train with the Royal Air Force, but the war ended before he could act as a pilot, which was just as well because I don’t think they even had planes in those days.

Chandler returned to California again in 1919, became a prosperous oil company executive, and married beautiful former model Cissy Pascal in 1924, thinking she was eight years his senior—she was actually 18 years older. (Marriage: full of these little surprises.) In the early 1930s, Chandler lost it, drinking and carrying on with women until he was fired, which prompted him to try writing again, and this time it took. He first published short stories in pulp magazines like Black Mask and Dime Detective. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939 and was based on several of his stories; the film version came out in 1946, starring Humphrey Bogart. His other novels include Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The High Window (1942), The Lady in the Lake (1943), The Little Sister (1949), The Long Goodbye (1953), and Playback (1958). Chandler also wrote screenplays, most notably Double Indemnity (1944), The Blue Dahlia (1946), and Strangers on a Train (1951).

Chandler’s wife died in 1954 and he was devastated, attempting suicide and struggling with depression and alcoholism until he himself died of pneumonia at a hospital in La Jolla, California.

In Farewell, My Lovely, Chandler wrote: “It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.”

On that edifying note, have a lovely Tuesday and stay scrupulously honest to the data.