Joseph Hansen born 19 July 1923 (d. 2004)Born in Aberdeen, South Dakota Joseph Hansen moved with his family to Minneapolis in 1933 and in 1936 to southern California, where he spent the rest of his life. He attended Pasasdena City College, and in 1943 married Jane Bancroft, a lesbian; the marriage lasted until her death in 1994, although according to a friend, quoted in an obituary, he also had two long-term male lovers. The couple had a daughter, who underwent gender reassignment surgery and is now a man.
Joseph Hansen made a career of writing, editing, and teaching. His earliest books are under the pseudonymn James Colton, or James Coulton, and he wrote two gothic novels as Rose Brock.
A self-avowed conservative in the liberation movement, Hansen disliked the term gay and preferred the term homosexual; but in his own way he was quite an activist. He worked through his novels and short stories to help create a climate of acceptance for all homosexuals in the mainstream of American life.
He wrote a variety of novels - around 40 - but is probably best known and remembered for his series of Dave Brandstetter novels, written from 1970 through 1991. In this series, featuring a handsome gay male detective who ages naturally from middle to old age over its twenty-one years, Hansen pioneers in the mystery genre by presenting gay men and lesbians as ordinary characters.
A lifetime heavy smoker, Hansen died from heart failure in 2004 at his home in Laguna Beach, California.