About Howard Fast
Howard Melvin Fast was an American novelist and television writer. Fast also wrote under the pen names E.V. Cunningham and Walter Ericson. He was jailed after testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. When his mother died in 1923 and his father became unemployed, Howard's youngest brother, Julius, went to live with relatives, while he and his older brother, Jerome, sold newspapers. While hitchhiking and riding railroads around the country to find odd jobs, he wrote his first novel, Two Valleys, published in 1933 when he was 18. In 1977, he published The Immigrants, the first of a six-part series of novels.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.