Stephen King called him his favorite crime novelist. He once lived in Fort Worth.

He presided, in the early 1950s, as the high priest of pulp. In his crime novels he wrote about a world where greed is god, where the Ten Commandments omit the word not and where the only cross is a doublecross.

James Myers Thompson was born in 1906. His father was a sheriff in Oklahoma. But in 1907 Sheriff Thompson packed up his family and hit the road after being accused of misappropriation.

After several restless years, in 1919 the Thompsons settled in Fort Worth. In 1923 young Jim got a job as a bellboy at the Hotel Texas, where he rubbed elbows and hip flasks with the hotel’s high-rolling oilmen, dice-rolling gamblers, drunk-rolling opportunists, con men, suckers, gold diggers and grifters. Thompson supplemented his bellboy income by providing under-the-table favors (drugs, bootleg booze, prostitutes) to hotel guests.

One biographer says that Thompson himself made it through each night with three packs of cigarettes, cocaine and alcohol. In 1924, Thompson suffered a breakdown caused by alcoholism, tuberculosis and nervous exhaustion.

He was 18 years old.

Or, as Thompson’s sister recalled, her brother was “18 going on 50.”

Meanwhile, encouraged by an English teacher at Poly High School, Thompson began to write, occasionally getting into print in minor magazines.

From Fort Worth, Thompson migrated to West Texas, working in oilfields and gambling joints. And he continued to write.

But throughout the 1930s and 1940s Thompson also continued to fight the bottle, was hospitalized several times.

His first crime novel, “Nothing More Than Murder,” was not published until 1949. But then Thompson’s muse seemingly took a deep drag and a strong swig: Thompson caught fire and burned with a blue-tipped flame from 1952 to 1954, writing a dozen novels.

Thompson fictionalized his experiences at the Hotel Texas. A “Swell-Looking Babe” is about a bellboy at the mythical Manton Hotel in Fort Worth. Crooks of his acquaintance at the Hotel Texas inspired characters in “Roughneck” and “The Getaway.” His “The Grifters” features a swindle that Thompson learned at the Hotel Texas.

In 1955, director Stanley Kubrick hired Thompson to write the script for Kubrick’s film noir classic “The Killing.” But Kubrick took the script credit and gave Thompson only a dialogue credit.

In 1957, Kubrick again hired Thompson — to write the script for “Paths of Glory.” Some sources say Thompson again wrote most of the script, but again Kubrick took top billing among the three screenwriters.

In 1960, Thompson moved to Hollywood and wrote for TV.

His “The Getaway,” starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw, was filmed in 1972. But by then Thompson was writing less and suffering more physically.

When Jim Thompson died in 1977, he had worn out one body and an undetermined number of typewriters. His 30 novels were out of print in the United States.

But then the high priest of pulp was discovered by a new generation. His novels were reprinted, his legacy re-evaluated. Now Thompson is considered among the most influential of American crime writers. Said Stephen King: “My favorite crime novelist — often imitated but never duplicated — is Jim Thompson.”

In 1990, Thompson’s “The Grifters” and “After Dark, My Sweet” were filmed. In 2010, his “The Killer Inside Me” was filmed. Kubrick called the novel “probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered.”

Yes, Jim Thompson’s career finally had found the one element for success that it had been missing: his death. That career move surely would please the cynical characters who people his novels.

Mike Nichols blogs about Fort Worth history at www.hometownbyhandlebar.com.

This story was originally published April 18, 2020 at 8:00 AM.