A Life of Deception
Donald MacKenzie’s publicized life as a confidence artist, stock pusher, and second-story man from the depths of the Great Depression until the late 1940s took him through Europe, North Africa, and the US. He name-dropped the infamous conmen of the day with whom he supposedly worked—some real, such as Jake “the Barber” Factor, brother of cosmetics magnate Max Factor, and Anthony de Bosdari, one-time fiancé of Tallulah Bankhead. Others were composites like his supposed mentor, Doc Springer, or “Baronet” William Livingstone Blaine, no doubt based on real-life schemers and thieves such as himself.
“I started scribbling drafts for short stories. I felt that my future was assured. How could editors fail to detect the master touch – the rollicking humor and subtle plotting!”
MacKenzie’s keen power of observation and lack of scruples made his writing both picaresque and intuitive of the darker, self-absorbed facets of human nature. He recognized early in his writing career—he began drafting short stories in Sing Sing Prison at 41—that he could leverage his earlier life of crime to his advantage. He was an authority on the subject and brashly believed that his experiences would not only appeal to editors but also would satisfy the insatiable demand for crime fiction by mid-century readers. With tongue in cheek, he wrote in hindsight about his thinking while in Sing Sing Prison:
After his arrest on December 11, 1948 and conviction of second degree grand larceny and infringement of the Sullivan Act (gun possession), MacKenzie spent 185 days in "The Tombs" in New York City. He was admitted to Sing Sing Prison on June 20, 1948 and then transferred to Auburn State Prison August 31, 1949. He had stolen jewelry from a woman living near Washington Square. Photo: Ossining Historical Society Museum.
At one time or another, most people dream of putting words on paper and rocking the literary world. I wasn’t an exception. It hadn’t been a lack of confidence that had stopped me before—just laziness. Now I started scribbling drafts for short stories. After a month, I had half a dozen completed. I felt that my future—at least my immediate future—was assured. How could editors fail to detect the master touch—the rollicking humor and subtle plotting! Characterization I didn’t know from a hole in the ground. But I had the massive conceit that I could write.
Mackenzie’s first book—an account of his jumping bail in England in February 1947 until his final release from Winchester Prison in November 1954—was published in 1955 by Bobbs-Merrill Co. in the U.S. and Elek Books, Ltd. in the U.K. Photo: owner’s copy.
The account is from his first book, Occupation: Thief, published in the United States in 1955 and simultaneously appearing in Great Britain with the title Fugitives. His second book, Gentlemen at Crime, also autobiographical, followed a year later. The two volumes quickly established his underworld credentials, giving readers a glimpse of astute, stylish criminal behavior. The publishers’ promotional departments knew a good thing when they saw it and fell in lockstep. The British edition of his third novel, The Scent of Danger (1958), for example, featured a dust jacket blurb that has been copied and pasted many times online:
Born in Ontario, Canada, in 1908 and educated in England, Canada and Switzerland, for twenty-five years, MacKenzie lived by crime in many countries. “I went to jail,” he writes, “if not with depressing regularity—too often for my liking.” His last [prison] sentences were five years in the United States and three years in England—and they ran concurrently.
He began writing and selling stories when in an American jail and says, "I like writing and hope to keep at it till I die. I like travel, kippers, American cars, Spanish suits, ice hockey, prize fights, walking, flowers, sun, dogs, Brahms, horseback riding, settling old scores, people who like me. I don't like meat, cocktail parties, Spanish gin, policemen, most judges, talk about things I don't understand, pompous people, good losers, or writers who 'spell it out' for you. I try to do exactly as I like as often as possible and I don’t think I’m either psychopathic, a wayward boy, a problem of our time, a charming rogue, or ever was.”
With this frothy, self-deprecating splash, some of which may be accurate, MacKenzie and his publishers forged a literary passport, credentialling the wily past of a new author they hoped would be going places in the crime-suspense genre. And make it he did, writing three dozen novels at a pace of about one per year right up until his death in 1993.
None of the recorded crimes MacKenzie committed before 1946 appear in his autobiographies, letters to his literary agent and editors, published biographical material and interviews.
Trouble is, he wasn’t born in Canada and was never educated there—and not likely in Switzerland either. MacKenzie wasn’t even the name of the “wayward boy” getting into trouble by 16, first stealing a wireless set and a pair of headphones from an uncle in 1924. He was born in 1908—not in 1918 as is sometimes seen in biographical write-ups—in Anglesey, Wales (more on that in a later post). True, he did enjoy travel and might even have liked kippers, Spanish suits, and Brahms. But hockey? Likely a feint to solidify the belief, complete fiction, that he was a son of Canada.
MacKenzie’s claim on that nationality, starting in Occupation: Thief, followed with carefully placed hints, such as the Canadian pedigree of the protagonist Paul Gregory in his first novel, Nowhere to Go (1956), and lead characters in later books, builds on that convenient deception. His only trip to Canada, aside from a day or two in Gander and Montreal transiting to the United States for a final cross-country crime spree in 1948, was a Salvation Army-sponsored trip to work on a farm in 1925, only to end up in a juvenile detention center in Guelph, Ontario. He was deported before the year was out.
The Salvation Army’s emigration program was responsible for some 200,000 British teenagers—both boys and girls—coming to Canada between 1903 and 1930. Donald MacKenzie, destined to work on a farm in Denfield, Ontario in 1925, never acknowledged his short-lived participation in the program nor his deportation back to England for a theft in Walkerton, Ontario. More on this story in later posts. Photo: Salvation Army Archives.
None of the recorded crimes MacKenzie committed before 1946 appear in his autobiographies, letters to his literary agent and editors, published biographical material and interviews. Nor does his birth name. They were his secret, disguised through careful allusions and intimation, intended to hide what he didn’t want known about his earlier life. In his view, reality didn’t support the narrative laid down in Occupation: Thief and Gentlemen at Crime. The fact that he was a scam artist and could write convincingly about the sometimes glamourous, sometimes tawdry underworld was enough. No one thought of probing deeper to learn that his art of deception continued even as his literary career flourished.
Did it matter? MacKenzie’s novels, edited and marketed by major US and UK publishing houses, succeeded on their own merits. Several were turned into films. Book reviews and sales were mostly positive, especially in the 1950s through 1970s. For crime-suspense fiction, his novels demonstrated stylistic ability and storytelling craft that were above average by the standards of the time and, in the opinion of some, superior by today’s.
Was the ongoing deception anyone’s business? Outing a celebrity, artist or politician always seems to be somebody’s business and is often lucrative. In the case of Donald MacKenzie, neither he nor his heirs will suffer any loss of prestige or marketability of his work in the telling of this story. The trail to his literary estate has gone cold, perhaps simply because of the neglect of time and interest. While his novels are easily found among the online used-book purveyors, they are all out of print, though some are available digitally.