Arthur Frederick Hailey (5 April 1920 – 24 November 2004), a British subject by birth, ended up becoming a resident of Canada and later, the Bahamas. Hailey wrote many novels, several of which became best-sellers and were subsequently made into feature films or TV miniseries.
His novels are known for their behind-the-scenes depiction of specific businesses or social services, and are heavily researched and meticulously planned. Whatever the subject is — medicine, aviation, banking, electric power distribution, television news — Hailey's books always show an expertise in the subject that is matched by few other writers. More often than not, they're also exciting page-turners.
Airport (1970) is probably the best-known film adaptation of one of his works.
Hailey wrote the following novels:
- Runway Zero Eight (1958) — A novelization of Hailey's 1956 CBC television play Flight Into Danger, about a former fighter pilot who must land a commercial airplane after both pilots are rendered unconscious by food poisoning. Hailey's story was also adapted into the 1957 drama film Zero Hour! (1957), which itself was spoofed in the hit 1980 comedy Airplane!.
- The Final Diagnosis (1959) — His first novel describes the events occurring in a small Pennsylvania hospital.
- In High Places (1962) — Infighting in Canadian parliament whether to integrate their military with USA, effectiely losing independence, or risk becoming a radioactive desert from intercepted transpolar nukes.
- Hotel (1965) — This story about the comings and goings of guests at a New Orleans hotel, was made into both a movie starring Karl Malden and an ABC TV series with James Bromine and Stephanie Zimbalist.
- Airport (1968) — Was made into a successful feature film two years later, starring Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bisset, and Helen Hayes, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film, along with The Poseidon Adventure, is said to have started the '70s disaster movie trend. It also spawned several sequels, none related to the original novel.
- Wheels (1971) — A frank examination of the American automotive industry.
- The Moneychangers (1975) — Examines the goings on at a medium-sized Ohio bank. Was made into a miniseries starring Kirk Douglas and Timothy Bottoms.
- Overload (1979) — Examines the workings of a large California electric and gas company.
- Strong Medicine (1984) — The phameceutical industry is placed "under the microscope" for the reader to see. Was turned into a TV miniseries.
- The Evening News (1990) — Examines how the nightly news program of a major network gets to your TV set.
- Detective (1997) — His last novel, a Police Procedural where a Miami detective is asked by a man on death row, who has eight hours to live, and wants to confess. This starts him on chase to discover the real killers in several other cases.
Hailey's works contain examples of:
- all lowercase letters: In Airport, Tanya Livingston had a mechanic file off all the capitals on her typewriter, and writes all notes and memos she sends out in lower case.
- As You Know: Usually averted as characters would mention some "insider term," and Hailey would do a quick aside to the reader on what it meant. Played straight in Hotel when Curtis O'Keefe tells Trent how his longtime bartender has been stealing from him, listing the various ways a bartender does it to a veteran hotel owner who would know all that. Justified as O'Keefe is pouring a little salt in the wound and Trent is forced to acknowledge how he was so blinded by the supposed "friendship" with the man that he missed the obvious signs of his theft.
- Author Tract: Hailey's novels often go into Author Tract territory, as the author has one or another of his character expatiate on a particular failing of the business he is examining in the current book.
- Airport goes into a lot of detail about aviation safety, how people who complain about airport noise are in fact sometimes deluded by real-estate promoters looking to make a buck, and the evils of "flight insurance" (a type of life insurance which, at the time the novel was published, could be purchased by passengers worried about whether they would survive the flight).
- The Moneychangers has a recurring character to filibuster about how Gold is Good. Given that he's a pundit with his own popular newsletter and is married to one of the secondary characters, and the book is about banking, it kinda makes sense. Then, after the 'real' ending, the US establishes a gold-backed dollar, and we are treated to the full text of one of said pundit's newsletters. Guess what it's about? The book ends with the lead putting the newsletter down and reflecting how wise said pundit is.
- Overload, a novel about a power company, written during the 1970s oil crisis, also ends with oil countries forcing US to return to gold-backed dollar. The protagonist, a power company spokesman, promptly comes up with a perfect comment about the dangers of America's dependence on foreign oil, as requested by the reporter who presented the story to him so she could get a soundbite.
- The Big Easy: Hotel is set in New Orleans.
- Comes Great Responsibility: A major theme in his works. The protagonists carry out their job with integrity and dedication while any antagonists are sloppy and/or abuse their power.
- Covert Emergency Call: In The Moneychangers, convicted embezzler Miles Eastin becomes a covert agent for the bank he defrauded, and infiltrates an organized credit card scamming operation. He alerts his superiors by using a credit card with the name H E Lincolp (HELp).
- Crash Course Landing: In Runway Zero-Eight, the pilot and copilot of a four-engine airliner are rendered unconscious by food poisoning. A former RAF fighter pilot, who hasn't flown for 10 years and has never flown a multi-engine airplane, has to be talked through landing the airliner.
- Double Don't Know:
- In Overload, Nimrod Goldman, a vice president of Golden State Power and Light (a Fictional Counterpart of the Pacific Gas & Electric Company) has evidence another executive — a former US Supreme Court Justice — lied when he said he knew nothing about electric power theft, and probably was aware (but they can't prove it) that such thefts were occurring on a ranch his family owns. The head of the utility's Property Protection Department asks him if they are going to continue trying to keep the former Justice's name out of the newspapers as being potentially involved in thefts from his own employer:“I don’t know.” Nim sighed. “I simply don’t know. And, in any case, it won’t be my decision.”
- In In High Places, Alan Maitland is the lawyer for Henri Duval, who is a stowaway on a freighter who has no papers, and thus, no country will admit him. Maitland has been trying to find a way to allow Henri to be admitted to Canada. Dan Orliffe, a local reporter covering the story, mentions Prime Minister Howden will be arriving in town and his newspaper could arrange for Maitland to meet him. As desperate as Maitland is to get Henri admitted, he's not sure if he should.Dan Orliffe's face had a studied earnestness. 'Everybody has an angle, but you and I would be helping each other, and Duval too. Besides, with that kind of advance publicity Howden wouldn't dare refuse.'
'I don't know, I just don't know.' - In High Places again: Brian Richardson, the manager of the Political Party the Prime Minister of Canada belongs to, has asked the Prime Minister's secretary, Millie, to marry him. She's not sure if it will work.Unhappily she answered, 'Brian, darling, I don't know. Honestly, I don't know.'
Or do I know? She thought.
- In Overload, Nimrod Goldman, a vice president of Golden State Power and Light (a Fictional Counterpart of the Pacific Gas & Electric Company) has evidence another executive — a former US Supreme Court Justice — lied when he said he knew nothing about electric power theft, and probably was aware (but they can't prove it) that such thefts were occurring on a ranch his family owns. The head of the utility's Property Protection Department asks him if they are going to continue trying to keep the former Justice's name out of the newspapers as being potentially involved in thefts from his own employer:
- Driven to Suicide: The fate of Roscoe in The Moneychangers. Having gotten his bank into a deal with a failing company that nearly ruined it and with his affair with another woman about to be exposed, Roscoe decides he can't live with the coming shame and throws himself off the roof of the bank's building headquarters.
- Elevator Failure:
- Hotel culminates with a poorly maintained hotel elevator falling down, snapping in two and dropping some of the passengers through the hole to injury or death.
- In Overload, a nurse and a janitor get stuck in an elevator during the climactic power outage. Problem is, the nurse works for a paraplegic woman whose wheelchair got drained of power when they were shopping earlier, and the nurse forgot to change it for the charged one before she stepped out, simply plugging in the chair. The pair even try to go out through the hatch and fail. The narration points out that even if they had made it out, they'd still be stuck in the shaft. The nurse starts crying when she remembers the battery, and the woman eventually asphyxiated.
- Failed a Spot Check: In The Moneychangers, Alex is the one member of the bank board warning about giving Sunatco a then-outrageous $50 million loan ($280 million in 2022 money). Too late, the bank realizes Sunatco is on the verge of bankruptcy and the entire loan almost totally extinguished. Showing a report on it from an investigator, Alex points out so much of this could have easily been discovered but no one put it together. He relates Sunatco is trying to find some new sucker to keep them afloat but those potential "investors" are asking the key question that FMA should have been asking: Why does a supposedly strong corporation need loans that huge in the first place?
- False Friend: In Hotel, St. Gregory hotel owner Warren Trent is facing serious financial troubles and may have to sell. Curtis O'Keefe offers to buy the place for his massive chain but Trent is unsure as it's not just him but his employees, who he sees as family. He cites Tom, the hotel's chief bartender for 30 years who Trent would trust with his life. To his shock, O'Keefe produces a report revealing that Tom "has been bleeding you white" almost that entire time. Trent confronts Tom on this and fires him. At which point, Tom sneers that he never saw Trent as anything more than a high and mighty boss and he (and others) are going to enjoy seeing him go out of business. Trent marvels at how he could never realize in 30 years how much his "close, personal friend" hated his guts.
- Family Versus Career: The characters' personal lives suffer as a result of the business they trade in.
- Insurance Fraud: Airport features a subplot about a failed businessman who takes out a large flight-insurance policy and plans to blow up the plane with himself on it, so his wife can collect.
- Kavorka Man: Overload has Nim Goldman, who's on poor terms with his wife. He looks like a middle-aged Judd Hirsch, according to some covers, and has sex with an absurd number of women over the course of the book, including a quadriplegic who still has sensation. After she dies, he pours out his story about his affair with said woman to a female reporter. She suggests he go home. He says it's too far away. She suggests he come to her place, which is only five minutes away. He barely hesitates before accepting.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: In Airport, one of the characters is an air traffic controller who's haunted by memories of a mid-air collision that took place on his watch (and for which he holds himself responsible). A flashback scene has him and his colleagues listening to a radio transmission from one of the planes as it plummets to earth after the collision, and the final words of a little girl aboard said plane:"...Mummy! Daddy!...Do something! I don't want to die... Oh, Gentle Jesus, I've been good... Please, I don't want..."
- Not That Kind of Doctor: In Hotel, Christine is attempting to find a doctor to treat a sick guest (the hotel's doctor is unavailable), so she has the front desk call every guest who registered as a doctor. The first one she reaches informs her that he's a doctor of music, but he humorously mentions he could always play his violin for the patient if they are unable to reach a physician. She smiles a bit and thanks him, saying she hopes that won't be necessary.
- Off the Record: In Overload, a reporter on a bus with the others covering the opening of a power plant asks if there's any booze at the meal the electric company is providing. The public relations flack on the bus asks all the reporters if that item will be off the record, and they all agree. Basically, if the electric company can afford to give reporters free booze, it might look to the public like they are spendthrifts when it comes time to ask for a rate increase, so they have to ask the reporters to keep that point about the availability of booze to themselves.
- The Oldest Tricks in the Book: In The Moneychangers, Roscoe meets with powerful executive Quatermain who wants a $50 million loan from FMA bank ($280 million in 2022 money). When Roscoe is unsure, Quatermain says that "if it's too much, I'll go to someone else" Afraid of losing a big partner like Sunatco, Roscoe agrees. Too late, Roscoe learns Sunatco is on the verge of bankruptcy and was using the loan to stay afloat with no intention (or resources) to pay it back. Remembering the talk with Quatermain, Roscoe is kicking himself that he fell for such an ancient ploy.
- Ponzi: In The Moneychangers, this is what the seemingly powerful Sunatco corporation has turned into. The company has been suffering massive losses but hiding it with fancy bookeeping. They keep themselves afloat by conning banks and other companies into giving them "loans" and then more loans to pay off their older debts. One example is a set of loans of $80 million to be paid off over forty years. But on the Sunatco books, that's cited as $80 million of profit. However, they're finally hitting the limit of borrowing and thus Sunatco is a house of cards ready to collapse.
- Prison Rape: In The Moneychangers, Miles Eastin is sentenced to prison for fraud, where he's gang-raped by a bunch of fellow inmates. He eventually agrees to be the "boyfriend" of a strong prisoner, who defends him from the gangs in exchange.
- Properly Paranoid: In The Moneychangers, Alex is the one person on the FMA board warning about a major partnership with the Sunatco corporation, especially if it means giving a $50 million loan ($280 million in 2022 money). Alex hires an investigator who soon discovers how Sunatco is on the verge of bankruptcy and could drag FMA down with them.
- Secretly Wealthy: Hotel has what looks to be a minor subplot of Albert Wells, an elderly guest with worn-down clothing, having health issues. Christine, secretary to the hotel's owner, looks after him, and after he's nursed back to health he reveals that he's actually a wealthy property investor and repays the staff's kindness by buying the hotel, saving it from being acquired by a chain. Another staff member, on learning the truth, feels guilty about having contacted Wells's bank to check on his credit, but is told that Wells's low-key appearance means it's happened before and they're used it by now.
- Small Role, Big Impact: A recurring theme in Hailey's works will be what seems to be some minor character having a bigger role later on.
- In Airport, the quiet, quirky elderly stowaway Ada Quonsett ends up helping save the day when a bomb explodes on a plane.
- In Hotel, Albert Wells looks like just a simple quiet guest...only to turn out to be a multi-millionaire who buys up the St. Gregory to save it from a rival hotel owner.
- In The Moneychangers, Vernon Jax is a run-down, rough and tumble figure who looks like a bum...and turns out to be the ace investigator who uncovers how the Sunatco corporation is on the verge of collapse.
- Suicide, Not Murder: Airport uses the version where a man plots to disguise his suicide as murder so his wife can collect on his life insurance — however, here the culprit intends to blow up the whole plane he's flying in.
- The Workaholic: His characters are often so dedicated to their job that its stresses consume their personal life.
