Orrie Hitt was born in Colchester, New York, on October 27, 1916. He married Charlotte Tucker in Port Jervis, New York, where they settled and had four children. He wrote approximately 150 books over a period of about 14 years while sitting at his kitchen table surrounded by iced coffee, noisy children and Winston cigarettes. In his prime, he wrote a new novel every two weeks. Though most of his books are now categorized as sleaze novels, he perfectly captured the not-so-quiet desperation of the working class in the continual search for sex, money and happiness. He died in a VA hospital in Montrose, New York, from cancer on September 7, 1975.