H. N. Swanson; Top Hollywood Literary Agent

H. N. Swanson, one of the nation’s most experienced literary agents who represented the cream of American authors when they were writing films in Hollywood, has died at his Beverly Hills home.

His stepson, Thomas J. Shanks, said Monday by telephone from New York that Swanson was 91 when he died Friday after suffering a stroke last month.

Known in the industry as “Swanie,” Swanson began writing as the founding editor of College Humor, a Chicago-based magazine. It was there that he began to encourage young writers.

In 1931 Swanson, who was named Harold Norling Swanson but used the initials H. N. throughout his life, moved to California and wrote and produced a handful of films after RKO studio chief David O. Selznick saw his work in College Humor. Wanting to renew his association with writers, he opened an office on Sunset Boulevard, where he soon began representing a vast majority of the writing talent in films. At one point in the mid-1930s, when there were 110 writers under contract to 20th Century Fox, Swanson represented 80 of them.

His clients at one time included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pearl Buck, Raymond Chandler and William Faulkner. More recently he handled the work of Joseph Wambaugh, Joyce Carol Oates, Paul Theroux and mystery writer Elmore Leonard, whom he took credit for discovering.

He persuaded Fitzgerald to retitle “Trimalchio in West Egg” as “The Great Gatsby” and negotiated a $750-a-week contract for an unknown Chandler.

Producer David Brown, whose credits include “Jaws,” recalled last year that “you never needed a contract (with Swanson)--just a handshake.”

Some of the scripts Swanson sold over the years included the 1946 “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “The Big Sleep,” “Old Yeller,” “Butterfield 8” and “The Mosquito Coast.”

His first wife, Ruth, died in 1982. He is survived by his second wife, Norma, his stepson, who is operations chief of H. N. Swanson Inc., two stepdaughters and five grandchildren.