Noel Ira Behn (Chicago, January 6, 1928 – New York, July 27, 1998) was an American novelist, screenwriter and theatrical producer.
His first novel, The Kremlin Letter, drawn from his work in the US Army's Counterintelligence Corps, was published in 1966 and made into a film by John Huston in 1970.
[1] Beginning in the late 1960s, owing to the happenstance of having offices in the same building on 57th Street in New York City, Behn began longstanding creative friendships with screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, choreographer Bob Fosse and playwright Herb Gardner.
Behn became a well-known participant in the social life of Manhattan, often found at the Russian Tea Room (where he always took the first booth for lunch), and at Elaine's on the Upper East Side in the evening, where he talked and drank with writers such as Gay Talese, A. E. Hotchner, Peter Maas and Pete Hamill.
Woody Allen was also a regular at Elaine's, and found acting roles for Behn in his films Stardust Memories (1980) and Another Woman (1988).