Felix Holt

Felix Holt (b. Murray, Calloway County, Kentucky, 20 December 1897; d. Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 3 June 1956*) 

Felix Cacilock Holt was the sixth child of Crawford Duncan ("C.D.") Holt (1858-1950) and Sally Bridewell Allen (1861-1947), who were married on 3 July 1878.  He had two older sisters, plus three siblings who had died young.  

His education ended with the eighth grade. During World War I he worked as a cartoonist for Stars and Stripes, published in Paris. Later he worked in Chicago and Detroit, first as a cartoonist and then as a reporter. In 1931 he moved to a radio station (WJBK) in Detroit, where he was a news editor. In the mid-1930s he moved to another Detroit radio station (WXYZ), where he contributed stories to the station's three biggest programs, Challenge of the Yukon, The Green Hornet, and The Lone Ranger (some of the episodes of the later television series were based on Holt's radio scripts). In 1945 he headed to New York to write for CBS the script of  a juvenile Western serial Cimarron Tavern (1945-1946). Another Holt wrote was Doctor Standish, Medical Examiner (1948). 

Holt's first novel, The Gabriel Horn (New York: Dutton, [September] 1951), was initially rejected by thirteen publishers. The novel is told by ten year-old Little Eli of his father Big Eli, and their experiences on the Kentucky frontier in the early nineteenth century. It was very successful, with a book club edition, and a mass market paperback, as well as an abridged version appearing in a collection of Reader's Digest Condensed Books. It was also made into a film in 1955, starring Burt Lancaster, retitled The Kentuckian. Holt published a few related short stories or extracts from his novel in Argosy in late 1951. 

Holt's second novel was Daniel Boone Kissed Me (New York: Dutton, [May] 1954). Like The Gabriel Horn it was based on his knowledge of the history and legends of Calloway County, Kentucky, where he was born and raised.  

Less than one month after the publication of Daniel Boone Kissed Me, Holt died at his Pennsylvania home, following a long illness (cancer of the stomach).  He was 56. He left a widow, the former Margie J. Sies (1899-1959), who he had married in St. Louis on 1 December 1919, and one daughter. Daniel Boone Kissed Me was retitled Mountain Boy (1957) when it came out in paperback.  

*Genealogical records show that Holt died on 3 June 1956, not 2 June as is given in some references.