Rex Beach

Rex Beach (1877–1949) was an American novelist and playwright. Born in Michigan and raised in Florida, he abandoned law school in Chicago for the Klondike gold rush in 1897 and spent five years prospecting in Alaska without striking it rich. The Spoilers (1906), a novel of claim-jumping and corruption in Nome based on a real conspiracy, was a bestseller and was filmed five times; The Barrier, The Silver Horde, The Iron Trail and many stories of the north and of Central America followed, and he was among the first authors to control the film rights to his work. He won a silver medal in water polo at the 1904 Olympics.