Leslie Charteris was born on the 12th May 1907,he spoke Chinese and Malay before learning English,and travelled around the world several times with his parents by the age of 12.At the age of eight he was given a typewriter and within  the year he was producing his own magazine which he sold to friends and family for a few pence.The images that he drew in the comic strip were made up of stick men,later on he stuck an halo on top of the stick man to produce the now famous Saint stick logo .
His first Saint book was published in 1928 , called" The Saint meets the Tiger "Simon Templar was 27 years of age in that first novel . Leslie Charteris did write other books besides the Saint novels ,he also wrote for many magazines.To find out more about these items go to the Official Saint Website and Leslie Charteris.com.
Leslie Charteris sold the TV rights of the Saint for 500.000 to Lew Grade in1961,Then the seach was on to find an actor who would play the part of the Famous Simon Templar.Charteris always had Gary Grant the hollywood film star in mind for the role but this proved unworkable so from there on in Charteris took no futher part in the casting.First choice for the role was Patrick Mc Goohan famous for his role in DangerMan but he turned the part down,So it went to a new up and coming star Roger Moore .
Leslie Charteris used to go along to the studios in elstree on a number of occasions to see Roger Moore play the Saint and they seem to get on quite well.To this day all Saint fans can not thank Leslie Charteris enough for bringing The Saint into our lifes.To find out more about Leslie Charteris go along to Leslie Charteris.com.