Trivia

Served in the United States Marine corps.

Did not start writing until he was in his late thirties and had his first novel published at the age of 44.

Attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he met his wife, actress Mary Ryducha.

Upon his death, his remains were interred at Mount Holiness Church in Inwood section of New York City.

Ludlum started arguably America's first theater to operate in a shopping mall - the Playhouse on the Mall in the Bergen Mall shopping center in Paramus, New Jersey - in the early 1960s, years before discovering his fiction-writing calling. Some of the actors he imported for the venture were Margaret Truman and Farley Granger ("Sweet Bird of Youth"), Bert Lahr ("Harvey"), Chester Morris ("The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial"), David Wayne ("Send Me No Flowers") and Burt Brinckerhoff ("Five-Finger Exercise"). Among the first season's apprentices were Gary Houston, Harriet Hyman and Dennis Metnick.

First cousin of Edward Ludlum