Biography

William Charles Lengel was born on 27 June 1888, in Durango, Colorado, the son of German immigrants, William F. and Alice C. Lengel. His father, who worked as a Lithotype operator, was born in Magdeburg and had immigrated to America as a young boy in 1868.

Not long after graduating from the Kansas City Law School and passing his bar exam, Lengel abandoned his law practice and traveled to New York in pursuit of an acting career. By 1920 he was working as a writer and editor for the International Magazine Company in New York. He would go on to be editor of Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, managing editor of Hearst's International magazine, editor of Smart Set magazine, associate editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, associate editor of Liberty magazine, Eastern story editor for Columbia Pictures and supervising editor at Fawcett Publications.

During World War Two Lengel served as an editorial adviser to the War Finance Division of the U.S. Treasury Dept.

While at Fawcett, Lengel was a driving force behind creating Fawcett Gold Medal Books, an early publisher of original paperback books and later Fawcett Great Books and Fawcett Premier Books, publishers of re-print paperbacks. In 1955 he was put in charge of all three paperback divisions as editor and chief of Fawcett World Library. In 1963 Lengel was named senior editor of Fawcett Publications.

As an editor of numerous publications, he got to know many of the great American authors of the 20th century. He had tried in vain to get Cosmopolitan to publish Ernest Hemingway's popular short story "Twenty Grand". The story eventually appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. He was successful in publishing works by such authors as W. Somerset Maugham, Theodore Dreiser and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Lengel loved to talk to his friends and associates about his relationship with these and other great authors, especially hi friend Dreiser.

Lengel wrote five novels using several different pseudonyms. "Forever and Ever", a story about original sin and a disapproving wife, published in 1932 under the pseudonyms of Warren Spence was probably his best known work. He also authored several one-act plays and numerous short stories for magazines.

Lengel was a member of the American Authors Guild, the Catholic Actors Guild and the Overseas Press Club.

Lengel died on 11 October, 1965, in New York City. He was survived by his son, Hughes McNeff Lengel. His wife, Nelle E. McNeff Lengel, had passed away several years earlier.
- IMDb mini biography by: John F. Barlow