He was a prolific creator of fiction and non-fiction, including screenplays and biographies under his own name and detective stories under the pseudonym of Leo Bruce.
Rupert Croft-Cooke was born on 20 June 1903, in Edenbridge, Kent,[2] the son of Hubert Bruce Cooke, who worked in the London Stock Exchange, and his wife Lucy, a daughter of Dr. Alfred Taylor,[3] and was educated at Tonbridge School and Wellington College.
In 1925 he returned to London and began a career as a freelance journalist and writer, at about this time combining his middle name into his surname.
In 1953, at a time when the Home Office was seeking to clamp down on homosexuality, he was sent to prison for six months on conviction for acts of indecency.
[5] The case of Croft-Cooke was discussed by the Committee who produced the Wolfenden report into changing the law on prostitution and homosexuality, specifically by Philip Allen, a civil servant testifying on behalf of the Home Office.
Michael Graham-Harrison, a junior Home Office civil servant, attempted to correct Allen's rhetorical overreaching, noting that the sailors were "picked up in a place frequented by homosexuals" and arguing that he did "not think anybody could believe for a moment that they did not know what they were going for".