Art Bell (1919 - 1988)
Arthur S. Bell, Jr. was an L.A. lawyer and originator of Bell's Compendium, which became an instant bestseller to the California legal community. After his passing his son, Jim, took over and has continued writing and editing Bell's.
Brought up in Hollywood, Art attended Hollywood High School where he was quarterback of the football team. When he broke a vertebra in a game many stars—including Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Boris Karloff, Edward G. Robinson, and Olivia de Havilland—sent him autographed photos.
He went on to UCLA, where he played catcher on the baseball team alongside Jackie Robinson.
In 1942, Art Bell was a 23-year-old ensign in the U.S. Navy, assigned to duty aboard the PC 477. The PCs were 173-foot, steel-hulled submarine fighters. Uncle Sam had thousands of seamen on hundreds of PCs convoying and patrolling in WWII. They were introduced in the desperate, early days of World War II, when the waters off America’s Atlantic coast were a graveyard of torpedoed ships. They performed essential, hazardous, and sometimes spectacular missions, yet the PCs were scarcely known at all outside the service. Art wrote a book to remedy that, Peter Charlie: The Cruise of the PC 477. It is available HERE.
