Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880 – December 10, 1946) was a newspaperman and writer. He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the Brooklyn or Midtown demi-monde. The adjective "Runyonesque" refers to this type of character as well as to the type of situations and dialog that Runyon depicted. He spun humorous tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, and gangsters, few of whom go by "square" names, preferring instead colorful monikers such as "Nathan Detroit," "Big Jule," "Harry the Horse," "Good Time Charley," "Dave the Dude," or "The Seldom Seen Kid." Runyon wrote these stories in a distinctive vernacular a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in present tense, and always devoid of contractions. The musical Guys and Dolls was based on two Runyon stories, "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure"; the film Little Miss Marker grew from his short story of the same name. Runyon was also a newspaperman. He wrote the lead article for United Press on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inauguration in 1933. - Wikipedia
