Donald Bain

BS 1957, Speech

Writer/Author
Danbury, CT

Donald Bain is the author or ghost/author of more than 100 books, many of them bestsellers. They encompass both fiction and non-fiction, and include such categories as murder mysteries, westerns, comedies, investigative journalism, food, business, psychology, and historical dramatizations. His autobiography, Murder HE Wrote: A Successful Writer's Life, was published by Purdue University Press.

Among his books, the airline comedy, Coffee Tea or Me?, published more than 40 years ago, together with its sequels sold more than five million copies worldwide and was the basis of a television movie-of-the-week. In 2003, Penguin Books republished it as a "Penguin Comedy Classic." Caviar, Caviar, Caviar, a coffee table book, is considered the definitive work on caviar. The Case Against Private Aviation brought about needed rules changes in commercial aviation. Veronica was the autobiography of Hollywood film legend Veronica Lake. Charlie and the Shawneetown Dame, a dramatization of a true story from the Prohibition era, and Bain's favorite of all the books he's written, has been in print for more than 30 years. Purdue University Press published a recent new edition.

He currently writes a series of original novels (37 total hard and softcover) based upon the television series, "Murder, She Wrote.” They're published by Obsidian, a new imprint from Penguin (NAL/Dutton), and are written “in collaboration" with TV's most famous mystery writer, Jessica Fletcher of "Murder, She Wrote," who exists only as a fictitious character. His “real” collaborator is his wife and writer Renée Paley-Bain.
 
During his early career, Bain was a writer/director for Peckham Productions, where he created films for such clients as Avon, American Airlines, Pan Am, IBM, Union Carbide and USIA, and wrote and produced two daily radio series: "Around the House,” and  "Jackie Douglas Reports.” He also wrote a nationally syndicated health series, "House Call" and wrote and hosted another nationally syndicated series, "The Media Watch.”

A public relations executive for McCann-Erickson and American Airlines, Bain also was a consultant to Pan Am for the introduction of the 747, the takeover of National Airlines, and a national campaign to promote air travel. Two of these projects earned Silver Anvil Awards from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). In 1985, with his wife, he co-founded Hyphenates, Ltd., which provides editorial services to a wide variety of companies.

Bain received Purdue University’s highest award for his work in educational radio and television. He went on to work professionally in broadcasting in Texas and Indiana, and co-hosted more than 200 shows in New York with Long John Nebel, then king of late-night talk-radio. Bain wrote a biography of Nebel, Long John Nebel, as well as a book about Nebel's wife, the famed model Candy Jones, and her experiences with the CIA and mind control, The Control of Candy Jones (performing rights to 20th Century Fox). The book was reissued in the fall of 2003 by Barricade Books, as The CIA’s Control of Candy Jones.

Bain has worked for over 40 years as a professional jazz musician (vibraphone and drums); has provided narrations and voice/overs for myriad commercials and documentaries; taught at the college level; and has written magazine articles on such diverse subjects as travel, music (he was jazz columnist and critic for Boulevard Magazine) and fly fishing. He is a member of Sigma Delta Chi, the Writer's Guild of America, the Authors Guild, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the Mystery Writers of America.

In 2006 he was designated "Grand Master" by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (IAMTW). In 2003 Don received the College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Alumni Award. He was named as a “Noted Alumnus” in Purdue's 2004 Facts at Your Fingertips.