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Bain, famed ghost writer, dies
SO LONG, crime-solving Jessica Fletcher of “Murder, She Wrote” fame. Farewell to Trudy Baker, the high-flying stewardess of the swinging ’60s.
And happy trails to J.D. Hardin, writer of nine westerns — including the indelibly titled “Bibles, Bullets & Brides.”
All passed away with the Oct. 21 death of Don Bain, ghostwriter extraordinaire, the best-selling author who toiled under assorted pseudonyms across a half-century career.
Bain, 82, wrote more than 120 books, including 45 detailing the detective work of fictional Cabot Cove co-author Fletcher.
“He was a great storyteller,” said longtime friend Sanford Teller. “Most of the time he told other people’s stories — and he made a very good living at it.”
Bain’s most successful book, “Coffee, Tea or Me?,” provided an insider’s look at the lives of two young, free-spirited flight attendants: Rachel Jones and Trudy Baker.
Few knew the 1967 book was written by a mustachioed 6-foot-4 former American Airlines PR man, and based on the mildly salacious tales of two real flight attendants with different names.
“Coffee, Tea or Me?” sold more than 5 million copies and led to three sequels. The Kindle edition still sells for $12.99.
During his mostly merry ride as a writer, Bain became a master of genres: “The Racing Flag,” a 1965 history of stock car racing; “Caviar, Caviar, Caviar,” a 1981 coffee table book dedicated to pricey fish eggs; “A Member of the Family,” a 1993 yarn about organized crime.
Bain ghosted the last book for Nick Vasile, a former Washington, D.C., police vice squad officer.The two had previously collaborated on “Sado Cop,” a 1976 tell-all memoir where Vasile acknowledged planting evidence and testi-lying at trials to win convictions.
Fast forward a decade. Vasile was called as a defense witness at a high-profile Mafia prosecution in Manhattan. When crossexamination came, the prosecutor pulled Vasile’s book from his briefcase.
“That was,” Bain later recalled, “the end of Nick Vasile as a credible witness.”
Bain’s first “Murder, She Wrote” title came in 1994. He shared the author’s credit with the Angela Lansbury character — although Fletcher always received top billing.
“We called him Jessica,” his daughter Pamela recalled with a laugh.
“A lot of people called him Jessica.”
Bain surreptitiously collaborated with presidential daughter Margaret Truman on a series of Washington-based thrillers: “Murder in the White House” and “Monument to Murder” were among the titles.
He was only acknowledged as a co-author on the books written under Truman’s name after her 2008 death. Bain was content as an ethereal figure, an omnipresent if oft-unknown twofinger typist.
“He told me, ‘If there’s bad reviews, then I love being a ghost,’ ” said Pamela Bain. “He did admit there were times with great reviews, and there were a lot, when he would have liked some recognition.”
Before becoming an author, Bain unsuccessfully peddled Olivetti typewriters in his native Long Island. He quickly came to prefer sitting in front of one.
Bain at one point leased a small office across from a Long Island restaurant called The Jolly Fisherman for use as his writing room.
As it turns out, the Jessica Fletcher mystery series will endure without Bain. The news comes with a plot twist: His grandson Zachary, 29, will come onboard as a writer.
Bain was thrilled by the news, as was Zachary’s mom Pamela. But she still remembers growing up in a house where dad toiled without fanfare in the basement.
“When people asked what he did,” she recalled, “I’d say he was a typist.”