http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-whitaker19dec19,1,5654755.story?coll=la-news-obituaries
OBITUARIES
Rodney Whitaker, a.k.a. Trevanian, 74; Author Wrote 'Eiger
Sanction'
By Myrna Oliver - Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 19, 2005
Rodney William Whitaker, the mysterious mystery writer best
known as Trevanian, the author of such international
bestsellers as "The Eiger Sanction," has died. He was
74.
Whitaker died Wednesday in the West Country of England of
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
His 1972 blockbuster "The Eiger Sanction," which was adapted
as a 1975 movie starring Clint Eastwood, was Trevanian's
first and perhaps best-known novel. In it, art historian and
sometime assassin Jonathan Hemlock (Eastwood in the film) is
sent to kill an enemy agent during a mountain climbing
expedition on Switzerland's majestic Eiger.
Some derided that novel and "The Loo Sanction" in 1973 as
pale James Bond derivatives. The author considered them
intentional Bond spoofs. Whatever they were, they sold
millions of copies and established him as a must-read mystery
writer.
Among the other Trevanian novels were cult-favorite "Shibumi"
in 1979, the romantic "The Summer of Katya" in 1983, the
western "Incident at Twenty-Mile" in 1998 and his last, the
semi-autobiographical
"Crazyladies of Pearl Street," published in June.
For years, Whitaker studiously avoided interviews or
publishers' promotions that would reveal his actual identity.
Many speculated that
"Trevanian" was actually novelist Robert Ludlum, a rumor
Whitaker put to rest.
In a rare interview, he told the New York Times Book Review
in 1979 that he wrote "under five different names on several
subjects: theology, law, aesthetics, film."
The eclectic author, using the pseudonym Nicholas Seare,
wrote the medieval parody "1339 or So - Being an Apology for
a Pedlar," published in 1975, and "Rude Tales and Glorious:
The Account of Diverse Feats of Brawn and Bawd Performed by
King Arthur and His Knights of the Table Round" in
1983.
An educator in communication and dramatic arts, Whitaker
wrote nonfiction books under his own name. Among those was
"The Language of Film" in 1970.
He also wrote under the names Benat LeCagot and Edoard Moran.
Were there others? Even the staid comprehensive anthology
Contemporary Authors noted: "It is difficult to determine how
many works he has published with other names."
His writing has been compared to that of Emile Zola, Bond's
creator Ian Fleming, Edgar Allan Poe and Chaucer. Unlike many
popular mystery authors, Whitaker never turned out formulaic
books.
Each seemed a separate and unique creation, linked only by
what the Washington Post in 1983 described as "a consistently
high level of craftsmanship, a certain playfulness of style
and a pervasive message that things are not what they
seem."
A Times reviewer wrote of his Montreal-based 1976 Trevanian
mystery: "
'The Main' is as real and unsentimental as a good writer can
make it - the characters believable, the exotic terrain drawn
accurately and with a good deal of color, the search for the
murderer making an otherwise episodic narrative taut and
compelling ... This is a good book, one to go to bed
with."
The Hartford Courant, in reviewing his 2005
semi-autobiography based in Depression-era Albany, N.Y.,
noted: "The thrust in 'Crazyladies' isn't in the driving of
the plot but in the feel of the place and people, and
Trevanian triumphs, aided by his trademark etymologic
dexterity and dispassionate wit."
"The real Pearl Street may have been a pit of desolation for
its residents, but readers will find it irresistible. They
won't come away from it with an unforgettable story to tell,
but they will feel as if they have been someplace and met
some people they won't soon forget."
To mask his identity and protect his privacy - or perhaps
just for fun
- Whitaker not only used many names, he also insisted that he
sent substitutes to pose as him in interviews and sometimes
claimed not to know any Professor Whitaker. His publisher
disclosed that Trevanian was Whitaker in 1984. In 1975,
Whitaker used his own name in a shared screenwriting credit
for the Eastwood movie.
The author remained attached to pseudonyms long after his
real name was published in reference books. He offered some
insight in a 1998 interview with Newsweek, shortly after
publication of his Wyoming-based novel "Twenty-Mile," which
the magazine described as a
"spectacularly entertaining western."
Whitaker explained that names were involved with his unusual
method of writing, which required conjuring up an author
capable of writing a particular novel. "I ask myself, 'Who
can tell this tale best? Who would already have this
information?' " he told Newsweek. He said he would name his
imagined author and then, using Method acting techniques, set
the author-character to writing the novel.
The elusive Whitaker was born June 12, 1931, in Granville,
N.Y., near Albany. He served in the Navy during the Korean
War, then earned bachelor's and master's degrees in drama at
the University of Washington and a doctorate in
communications from Northwestern University.
In the late 1960s, he taught in the film department of the
University of Texas in Austin and became department
chairman.
When his Trevanian novels took off, he bought a home in
France's Basque country, which became the setting for some of
his books.
Whitaker is survived by his wife, Diane Brandon Whitaker; two
sons, Lance and Christian; and two daughters, Alexandra and
Tomasin.
Jim Beaver
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