Johnston’s style is paradoxically recognizable, despite seeming matter of fact and transparent, his narration employing little reliance on metaphor, idiosyncratic locution or other literary manipulation. But the ostensible simplicity is utterly deceptive: for in the “serious” books, depth of characterization sneaks up on the reader, dialogue and internalization unusually nuanced, layered and when appropriate even subtle, with a psychological perception very ahead of its time.
Johnston’s humorous novels are a textbook lesson on comic timing in prose, possibly because he had some experience as an actor (a signature of his books is writing phone conversations as play-format dialogue exchanges, woodshedding redundant “he saids” and “she saids”).
He knew the wisdom and the technique of “simply” staying out of the way, and letting the tale be carried by action, dialogue, and an impeccable sense of cadence and rhythm. Plus his own unique brand of whimsy and wordplay.
Johnston’s career started in 1960 with the release of a hardcover comic murder mystery, The Marriage Cage (Lyle Stuart, reissued in paperback by Dell), which earned him a Best First Novel Edgar Award nomination from the Mystery Writers of America. Curiously, this did not lead immediately to more mystery novels (though he would write mystery tie-ins later in his career), but rather to a number of early 60s pulp titles for Monarch Books, which ranged from light comedy (The Power of Positive Loving) to medical romance (the Doctor Starr trilogy) to soft core racy (Save Her for Loving, Teen Age Tramp, Girls on the Wing).
The medical novels in particular either dovetailed with, or led to, his first tie-in commissions, which were for original novels based on medical dramas, such as The Nurses (Bantam), Doctor Kildare (Lancer and Whitman) and Ben Casey. These books, published between 1962 and 1964, were so successful that a cover variant on The Nurses includes a “2nd Big Printing” starburst; and his next (and it would seem last) original medical romance, Two Loves Has Nurse Powell (Neva Paperbacks) trumpets “From the author of Ben Casey. ”
It’s likely that among these books, the Doctor Kildare title written for Whitman’s young audience line was a significant pivot point, because in 1965, Tempo Books (the Young Audience paperback imprint of Grosset & Dunlop) commissioned Johnston to write Get Smart, an original novel based on the spy satire sitcom starring Don Adams, Barbara Feldon, and Edward Platt, created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. The first Get Smart book proved so staggeringly popular, going through multiple printings, that follow ups were immediately commissioned, leading to what would become a series of nine books over the course of the show’s five-season history.
That doesn’t sound like much in new millennium terms, but in the 60s it amounted to a single-author original tie-in grand slam, outdistanced only by the Dark Shadows series authored by Dan (as “Marilyn”) Ross. Indeed, it was the third place holder for TV tie-in series originals in general, with only the 23-book Man from U.N.C.L.E. series—by multiple authors—between it and Dark Shadows. (James Blish’s 12 book Star Trek series for Bantam, which continued into the 70s, did not feature original tales, but was rather comprised exclusively of short stories adapting the show’s teleplays.)
Johnson’s gig as Maxwell Smart’s official novelist in turn led to his becoming the go-to guy for sitcom-based novels in general. Continuing with Tempo Books from the rest of the decade into the mid-70s, he authored a one-shot based on the short-lived Captain Nice (starring William Daniels of 1776 and also created by Buck Henry) and book series based on Room 222, Happy Days, and Welcome Back, Kotter. Concurrently he also authored books based on The Flying Nun for Ace, as well as The Brady Bunch and Nanny and the Professor (Lancer). As if that weren’t plenty, he also did sitcom novels for Whitman, including titles based on The Munsters, Gilligan’s Island, Bewitched, The Monkees, and F-Troop.
Though the sitcom novels dominated Johnston’s tie-in career, and were the work with which he was reflexively identified, he still did a catalog’s worth of work in just about every other TV tie-in genre except science fiction and military. He authored one-off mysteries based on My Friend Tony (Lancer), Ironside (Whitman), and the comic strip Dick Tracy (Tempo), a two-book series based on the American Revolution youth historical, The Young Rebels, and an original Western based on The Iron Horse (Popular Library). Under pseudonyms he tackled social drama, with a book based on Rod Serling’s The New People (as “Alex Steele” for Tempo) and two based on Matt Lincoln (as “Ed Garth” for Lancer). His catalog even includes a smattering of juvenilia, with Whitman Big Little books based on Hanna Barbera cartoon characters such as Magilla Gorilla and Snagglepuss, among others. (According to the late Howard Ashman—whose day job, before Little Shop of Horrors made him a musical theatre icon, was assistant editor at Ace/Tempo during Johnston’s most prolific period—Johnston’s services as sitcom specialist were so much in demand that, simply to keep up the pace and meet the deadlines, he would occasionally create detailed outlines which would then be farmed out to anonymous “ghosts” for fleshing out. Since the style remains consistent, one assumes Johnston added the final polish.)
Aside from his TV tie-in originals, Johnston penned many script novelizations, again in multiple genres. He novelized the pilots for the 1930s-era private eye series Banyon (Warner) and the high school drama Sons and Daughters (Ballantine). His feature film novelizations include (and may not be limited to) Alan J. Pakula’s controversial Klute, The Swinger, Echoes of a Summer, Robert Bloch’s Asylum, The New Interns, The April Fools, The Priest’s Wife, Disney’s Lt. Robin Crusoe, USN (written as “Bill Ford”) and Angel, Angel, Down We Go. If you note that The Swinger was published under the Dell imprint and review the publishers named in this release, another astonishing fact emerges: Johnston tie-ins seem to have been issued by every major paperback house of the era, with the exception of Fawcett.
Which is not to say that Fawcett didn’t publish him: during this period he, like a lot of male pulpsmiths, also wrote gothic romances behind a female pseudonym. His were published—by Fawcett—under the name “Susan Claudia.” Johnston’s wholly original work became scarce once he was established as a tie-in machine, but it didn’t altogether disappear. Aside from the Susan Claudia gothics, he also authored The Manipulator (Lancer, 1968, reissued under Magnum), a racy paperback potboiler about an ambitious business executive fighting the odds to get a revolutionary jetliner into the air; and in hardcover, a novel about an overweight, bigoted beat cop called Barney (Random House, 1970, reissued in paperback by Warner).
Barney was his longest novel ever, clocking in at 307 pages. The page count is an interesting statistic owing to the period in which Johnston wrote: at that time, tie-in novels were typically shorter than they are today—as indeed were genre novels in general—and a typical Johnston paperback ranged from between 128-144 pages of small print to 160-190 pages of moderate print. By those standards, his two longest original tie-ins, the small print releases The Nurses at approximately 224 (Bantam) and The Iron Horse at approximately 190 (Popular Library) were tie-in epics.
Johnston’s last book—anyway, his last as far as can be determined—was an atypically “epic” small-print novelization, of the likewise epic, and thoroughly notorious film Caligula (Warner, 1979, 222 pages). As shamelessly salacious as the film apparently was, the book sported the byline “William Howard,” possibly to avoid inappropriately attracting the younger readers who flocked to his sitcom pastiches. Indeed, the book had its own notoriety, for it was originally released in advance of the film—with the film’s logo design (a Roman coin featuring an embossed close-up likeness of Malcolm McDowell in the title role) against a tan background—as Gore Vidal’s Caligula. But soon after, all unsold copies of the print run were recalled, as Vidal had filed suit to have his name taken off Bob Guccione’s vulgarized film. Vidal lost the suit, but his name was removed from the book, which was reissued with the logo against an ironically lily white background as simply Caligula, with no screenplay attribution.
The following profile comes from the p
remier edition back cover of Johnston’s first book, The Marriage Cage, and constitutes virtually the only bio of any meaningful detail he allowed on any of his books (he is quoted as having said, “I wanted to stay as anonymous as possible”). Based on its irreverent style, it’s safe to assume Johnston wrote it himself:
William Johnston was born in Lincoln, Illinois on January 11, 1924.
He ended his formal education after three years of high school, when he left home and school at seventeen to become an actor. Claims he was a lousy actor.
Joined the Navy in 1942 after seeing a Naval band marching in a newsreel. Has tried to avoid newsreels ever since. Served in the Pacific. After the war, he became a disk jockey for radio station WTAX, Springfield, Illinois. A year later, he became a wandering disk jockey, working at stations in Illinois and Indiana.
In another year, as Johnston tells the story, he, with two acquaintances and one client, formed an advertising agency in Chicago. For certain mystic reasons, they named it Merchants Limited, after a train that ran between Boston and New York. The day after the agency was formed, the client came to his senses and pulled out. Agency disbanded.
He was for two years the associate editor of The Lion, magazine of the International Association of the Lions Clubs.
For the past nine years he has been a public relations account executive. At the moment he handles the Lionel trains account for Tex McCrary’s public relations agency.
After Caligula, Johnston—who had amassed millions of fans yet little meaningful literary recognition—tired of writing and decided to become—
—wait for it—
—a bartender.
Then living on Long Island, New York, he attended bartending school and graduated to find that he was considered too old to hire. His solution was to buy his own bar, which he did. It was called The Blind Pig; it was located in Massapequa, and he ran it very successfully until his retirement.
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