Edward Heward Bunker[1] (December 31, 1933 – July 19, 2005) was an American author of crime fiction, a screenwriter, convicted felon, and an actor.

He began running away from home when he was five years old, and developed a pattern of criminal behavior, earning his first conviction when he was fourteen, leading to a cycle of incarceration, parole, re-offending, and further jail time.

The character Nate, a career criminal who fences stolen goods in the 1995 heist movie Heat, played by Jon Voight, was based on Bunker, who was consultant to director Michael Mann.

His mother, Sarah (née Johnston), was a chorus girl from Vancouver, and his father, Edward N. Bunker, a stage hand.

[9] Bunker spent time in the juvenile detention facility Preston Castle in Ione, California, where he became acquainted with hardened young criminals.

Some thought he was unhinged, but in Bunker's book Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade he stated this behavior was a ruse designed to make people leave him alone.

[12][7] Fazenda sent him a portable typewriter, a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a subscription to the Sunday edition of The New York Times, whose Book Review he devoured.

He also subscribed to Writer’s Digest and enrolled in a correspondence course in freshman English from the University of California, selling blood to pay for the postage.

Chessman had sent Bunker an issue of Argosy magazine, in which the first chapter of his book was published; in 1955 the memoir was made into a movie by Fred F. Sears.

In the early 1970s, Bunker ran a profitable drug racket in San Francisco; he was arrested again when the police, who had put a tracking device on his car, followed him to a bank heist.

[16][17] Like most of the roles Bunker played, it was a small part, and he went on to appear in numerous movies, such as The Running Man, Tango & Cash and Reservoir Dogs, as well as the film version of Animal Factory, in 2000, for which he also wrote the screenplay.

[19] An obituary in the Los Angeles Times described Bunker's appearance onscreen: With his soft, raspy voice, a nose broken in innumerable fights and a scar from a 1953 knife wound that ran from his forehead to his lip, the compact and muscular ex-con was ideal for typecasting as a big-screen thug.

[6][7] In The Long Riders, he had a brief role as Bill Chadwell, one of two members of the James-Younger Gang killed during a bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota.

[21] Prior to his death, Bunker assisted in production of short films alongside Canadian director Sudz Sutherland such as "The Confessions of a Taxicab Man", "The Spooky House on Lundy's Lane", and "Angie's Bang".

[22] Bunker's hard-boiled and unapologetic crime novels are informed by his personal experiences in a society of criminals in general and by his time in the penal system in particular.

Recounting Bunker's piece "The Inhuman Zoo" for West Magazine, Dennis McLellan wrote: Deputies in Central Jail sometimes stomped inmates for no reason.

His face, liberally etched by countless brawls in juvenile hall, reform school, jail and prison, matches the hard-edged places his books describe.

Bunker was close friends with Mexican Mafia leader Joe "Pegleg" Morgan, and San Francisco State University professor John Irwin, as well as actor Danny Trejo, who is the godfather of his son.

[25] A diabetic, Bunker died on July 19, 2005, at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, following surgery to improve the circulation in his legs.