Роберт Энсон Хайнлайн
Robert Anson Heinlein
США, 7.7.1907 - 8.4.1988

Классик американской фантастики.

Лауреат Prometheus Award 1983, 1987, 1996, 1997, Hugo Award 1956, 1960, 1962, 1967, Locus Poll Award 1974, 1977, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1990, Nebula Grandmaster Award 1974.

Robert Anson Heinlein was born on July 7, 1907 in Butler, Bates County, Missouri, the third son of Rex Ivar Heinlein and Bam Lyle Heinlein. Heinlein had two older brothers, Rex and Lawrence, a younger brother, Jesse, and three younger sisters, Louise, Rose and Mary. At a young age his family moved to Kansas City, Missouri. He grew up there, but spent summers with relatives in Butler.

He graduated from Central High School in Kansas City in 1924 and attended one year of college at Kansas City Community College. His brother Rex had gone on to the Naval Academy at Annapolis and Heinlein elected the same future for himself. He industriously collected letters of recommendation and sent them to his senator, James A. Reed. It was said that Reed received one hundred letters requesting appointments to Annapolis... fifty each for individuals, and fifty for Robert A. Heinlein.

Heinlein entered the Naval Academy in 1925. Heinlein was commissioned in 1929 and served on a variety of ships, including the USS Lexington (the first true United States aircraft carrier) and the destroyer USS Roper. The constant rolling of the destroyer caused Heinlein to be seasick much of the time, and in 1934, weakened, he contracted pulmonary tuberculosis. He was cured and then retired as medically unfit for service-- "permanently disabled"-- and given a small pension.

In 1932, shortly after his commissioning, he married Leslyn Macdonald. Little is known about her other than brief comments in various autobiographies by Heinlein's contemporaries. Heinlein never commented publicly on Leslyn or the later divorce.

Between 1934 and 1939 Heinlein is believed to have worked at several occupations in both Los Angeles and Colorado Springs. One report has it that he was part-owner of a silver mine that reputedly went bust when his co-owner was machine-gunned down. He studied advanced engineering and mathematics at UCLA (having a bachelor's in Naval Engineering from the Academy), as well as architecture. He is also believed to have worked in real estate and possibly as an artist, photographer and sculptor, although the details of these trades are not fully known.

By 1938 Heinlein was working as a staff writer for Upton Sinclair's EPIC News, the house organ of the EPIC (End Poverty In California) campaign. Heinlein ran for the 59th District California State Assembly seat in the November 1938 election. Although he ran unopposed as a Democrat, he was narrowly defeated in the primary by the Republican incumbent, Charles W. Lyons.

(Yes, the primary, not the general election. Election laws of the day permitted "cross filing" or listing one's name on the other party's ticket. Lyons cross filed on the Democratic ticket while Heinlein did not do the reverse, and thus picked up a winning number of votes in the primary.)

In early 1939 he was broke, married, saddled with a mortgage that may have been taken out to partially finance his campaign, and struggling along on his small Navy pension.

In late 1938 the science fiction magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories announced a story contest. Less a one-shot contest than an ongoing search for new authors, it offered full rates (one-half cent per word, up to $50) to any previously-unpublished writer whose story was selected. Although Heinlein had been a voracious reader of everything including the earliest science fiction magazines, he always claimed that it was this 'contest' announcement that led to the writing of his first story.

He turned out "Life-Line" in four days in April 1939 and submitted it not to Thrilling Wonder Stories, which he assumed would be flooded with manuscripts, but to John W. Campbell at Astounding Science Fiction. Campbell promptly bought the story at one cent per word, or $70. Excepting his World War II service, Heinlein never seriously worked at any other trade for the remainder of his life. 

Heinlein divorced Leslyn in late 1947. In late 1948, he married Virginia Doris Gerstenfeld, who remained his wife, assistant and close companion until his death in 1988. She presently lives on the South Atlantic coast.

Heinlein died peacefully during his morning nap on 8 May 1988, finally succumbing to a combination of emphysema and related health problems that had plagued him for the last several years of his life. His remains were scattered from the stern of a Navy warship off the coast of California, near his beloved Santa Cruz home of twenty years, Bonny Doon. There is no memorial or cenotaph.