the modern day — at least, to his host of friends and readers who are skeptics regarding l'amour. Before he became a film producer and was still just a newspaper scribe, Mr. Hellinger went for Manhattan in a blissfully uninhibited way — for its sights and sounds and restless movements, its bizarre people and its equally bizarre smells. And he made quite a local reputation framing his fancies in flowery billets doux which stirred the hearts and the humors of readers of the tabloid press." Hellinger won the 1947 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture for The Killers. Personal life and death In 1926, Hellinger was one of the judges for a beauty contest sponsored by the Daily News. The winner was Ziegfeld showgirl Gladys Glad, and on July 11, 1929, the two were wed. She divorced him in 1932, but after a year the two remarried on the same date as their original wedding, and they remained wed until his death at age 44 from a coronary thrombosis in Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles. He was buried in a private mausoleum at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York on Christmas Eve. Legacy In January 1949, the 51st Street Theatre in Manhattan was renamed the Mark Hellinger Theatre in his honor. In 1989, the venue was converted into the Times Square Church. The Hellinger Award annually acknowledges the accomplishments of St. Bonaventure University's most promising young journalism student. It was established in 1960 by columnist Jim Bishop in memory of his mentor. Bishop also wrote a biography of Hellinger entitled The Mark Hellinger Story: A Biography of Broadway and Hollywood. The composer Miklós Rózsa, who had scored The Killers, Brute Force, and The Naked City, was particularly devoted to Hellinger and dedicated his suite of music from those films (Mark Hellinger Suite or Background to VIolence) to the producer's memory. See Rózsa, Double Life, 2nd ed., 1989, pp. 153-154. References External links Mark Hellinger site at St. Bonaventure University Jewish American journalists American male journalists Journalists from New York City American theater critics Film producers from New York (state) Writers from Queens, New York 1903 births 1947 deaths Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery Townsend Harris High School alumni 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American Jews