Stuart Palmer (June 21, 1905 -February 4, 1968) was a popular mystery novel author and screenwriter, best known for his character, Hildegarde Withers. June 21 is the 172nd day of the year (173rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 193 days remaining. ... 1905 (MCMV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar). ... February 4 is the 35th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday. ... Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centres upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ... Screenwriters, scenarists or script writers, are authors who write the screenplays from which movies and television programs are made. ... Hildegarde Withers is a fictional character created by Stuart Palmer who appeared in several films and novels. ...

Palmer was born in Baraboo, Wisconsin. His first novel, "The Penguin Pool Mystery" was published in 1931 and filmed the following year by RKO Radio Pictures as "Penguin Pool Murder." Character actress Edna May Oliver starred as Palmer's heroine, Hildegarde Withers, a spinster schoolteacher who was an amateur sleuth -- something of an American version of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple although considerably more comic and caustic. Oliver's casting was a happy coincidence as Palmer had been influenced by her performance in the Broadway production of "Showboat" when creating the character. The film was a hit and Oliver starred in two more Withers films, but she left RKO in 1935. The series foundered, with Helen Broderick and later ZaSu Pitts in the role for another three films. Baraboo is a city in Sauk County, Wisconsin, along the Baraboo River. ... The classic logo of RKO Radio Pictures. ... Edna May Oliver (November 9, 1883 – November 9, 1942) was an Oscar-nominated American film actress. ... Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE (15 September 1890-12 January 1976), also known as Dame Agatha Christie, was an English crime fiction writer. ... Joan Hickson as Miss Marple Jane Marple, usually known as Miss Marple, is a fictional character appearing in 12 Agatha Christie crime novels. ... Broadway theatre[1] is the most prestigious form of professional theatre in the U.S., as well as the most well known to the general public and most lucrative for the performers, technicians and others involved in putting on the shows. ... The Music City Queen on the Cumberland River, Nashville. ... Helen Broderick (August 11, 1891 – September 25, 1959) was an American film and stage actress known for her comic roles. ... Zazu Pitts (1894-1963) sporting her famous bob hairstyle ZaSu Pitts (January 3, 1894 (?) – June 7, 1963) was a United States movie actress. ...

Several of Stuart Palmer's stories were made into motion pictures. In 1936, he penned his first screenplay and would go on to write several others, most of them B movies. Palmer wrote for many B mystery series, scripting the first three Bulldog Drummond films for Paramount, and later entries in Columbia's Lone Wolf and RKO's The Falcon series. The term B-movie originally referred to a film designed to be distributed as the lower half of a double feature, often a genre film featuring cowboys, gangsters or vampires. ... Bulldog Drummond is a British fictional character created by Sapper, a pseudonym of H. C. McNeile (1888-1937), in imitation of the hard boiled noir-style detectives appearing in contemporary American fiction. ... Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production and distribution company, based in Hollywood, California. ... A Lone Wolf is a wolf that lives by itself rather than in a pack. ... A falcon is a bird of prey. ...

Palmer wrote several Hildegarde Withers mystery novels, including "Murder on the Blackboard" (1932), "Murder on Wheels" (1932), "The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree" (1934), "Four Lost Ladies" (1949), "Cold Poison" (1954, set in the thinly disguised Walter Lantz animated-cartoon studio), "The People vs. Withers and Malone" (1963), and "Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene" (1969) which was completed by Fletcher Flora upon Palmer's death and published posthumously. Palmer also featured Withers in short stories that were published in mystery magazines; some were anthologized in "The Riddles of Hildegarde Withers" (1947). Walter Lantz in 1983, with painting of Woody Woodpecker Walter Lantz (April 27, 1900 – March 22, 1994) was an American cartoonist and animator, best known for founding the Walter Lantz Studio and creating Woody Woodpecker. ...

Palmer also wrote a few detective novels with the lead character of Howie Rook and served one year as President of the Mystery Writers of America. The Mystery Writers of America are an organization for mystery writers. ...