Alan Le May

Alan Le May was an American novelist and screenwriter. He is most remembered for two classic Western novels, "The Searchers" (1954) and "The Unforgiven" (1957). They were adapted into the motion pictures "The Searchers" (1956) and "The Unforgiven" (1960). During World War I, he enlisted and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. While attending the University of Chicago, where he graduated in 1922 with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree, he joined the Illinois National Guard. He was promoted to First Lieutenant Field Artillery for the Illinois National Guard in 1923.