Otis Guernsey Jr.

Otis Love Guernsey Jr. (August 9, 1918 – May 2, 2001) was an American journalist, writer, and editor of books about theatre.

Guernsey was inspired by a true story during World War II when British Intelligence obtained a dead body, invented a fictitious officer who was carrying secret papers, and arranged for the body and misleading papers to be discovered by the Germans as a disinformation scheme called Operation Mincemeat.

Guernsey turned his idea into a story about an American salesman who travels to the Middle East and is mistaken for a fictitious agent, becoming "saddled with a romantic and dangerous identity".

Guernsey admitted that his treatment was full of "corn" and "lacking logic", and he urged Hitchcock to do what he liked with the story.

[citation needed] Guernsey was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame on January 29, 2001.