Philips, Judson

American author and journalist, born in Northfield, Massachusetts. Judson P. (Pentecost) Philips has primarily become known as a crime writer under his own name as well as the pseudonym Hugh Pentecost. While his writing career from 1939 on is well charted, there is little information about his private life: in the few interviews he gave, he was happy to talk about his writing, but not about his family or his background. It is, however, known that he was born in an artistic home: his father an opera singer and his mother an actress. When he was still a child, his parents understood that he couldn’t follow their footsteps: he was a bad actor and an even worse singer. Instead, he was attracted to literature, and read a lot.