David Westheimer (April 11, 1917, inHouston,Texas – November 8, 2005) was an American novelist best known for writing the 1964 novelVon Ryan's Express which was adapted as a1965 film starringFrank Sinatra andTrevor Howard.

Ironically, one of his most popular novels, and perhaps his most enduring, was not credited to him for much of its shelf life: In its original printing, he was by-lined as the author of thenovelization ofDays of Wine and Roses based on the screenplay by his friendJ.P. Miller. But the book proved hugely popular and the story had become so iconic that its publisher Bantam Books (and one supposes the authors, by mutual arrangement) took Westheimer's name off the book to move it into the "literature" category and keep it in print (which they did, for decades). Subsequent printings were branded onlyJ.P. Miller's Days of Wine and Roses without an explicit by-line for the novel.

Westheimer, aRice University graduate, worked as an assistant editor for theHouston Post from 1939 to 1946 except for those years spent with theUnited States Army Air Forces during World War II. As a navigator in aB-24 he was shot down over Italy on December 11, 1942 and spent time as aprisoner of war inStalag Luft III.

His first novel,Summer on the Water, was published in 1948.

In addition toVon Ryan's Express, Westheimer also wrote atelevision pilot set in an Italian prisoner of war camp calledCampo 44.

• Summer on the Water, Macmillan, 1948
• The Magic Fallacy, Macmillan, 1950.
  • Briefly noted inThe New Yorker 25/50 (4 February 1950) : 90
• Watching Out for Dulie, Dodd, 1960.
• A Very Private Island, Signet (New American Library), 1962, under the pseudonym "Z.Z. Smith"
• Days of Wine and Roses, Bantam, 1963 (novelization of the screenplay byJ.P. Miller)
• Von Ryan's Express, Doubleday, 1964.
• My Sweet Charlie, Doubleday, 1965. (Adapted into a1970 television movie.)
• Song of the Young Sentry, Little, Brown, 1968.
• Lighter than a Feather, Little, Brown, 1971.
• Over the Edge, Little, Brown, 1972.
• Going Public, Mason & Lipscomb, 1973.
• The Olmec Head, Little, Brown, 1974.
• The Avila Gold, Putnam, 1974.
• Rider on the Wind, London: Michael Joseph, 1979.
• Von Ryan's Return, Coward, 1980.
• Delay en Route, 2004.

• Sitting it Out: A World War II POW Memoir, Rice University Press, 1992.

• "Author David Westheimer dies at 88"

• 20th-century American novelists
• 21st-century American novelists
• American male novelists
• Writers from Houston
• 1917 births
• 2005 deaths
• San Jacinto High School alumni
• Rice University alumni
• United States Army personnel of World War II
• World War II prisoners of war held by Germany
• United States Army Air Forces soldiers
• Houston Post people
• Journalists from Texas
• 20th-century American journalists
• American male journalists
• 20th-century American male writers
• 21st-century American male writers
• Novelists from Texas
• 21st-century American non-fiction writers
• American male non-fiction writers

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