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Arts & Entertainment

Les Roberts Celebrates 25th Book

Los Angeles transplant fell in love with Stow and Cleveland during his research trips

Cleveland is the center of fictional character Milan Jacovich’s world, as it was for his creator, author Les Roberts, for nearly two decades. These days, though, Roberts’ personal life centers around Stow and Cuyahoga Falls.

For the past 18 months, the award-winning mystery writer has been living in relative obscurity in Stow, where he moved to be closer to his girlfriend of 12 years, Holly Albin of Cuyahoga Falls. That means area residents could unwittingly become characters in Roberts' future novels.

"I never leave the house – not even to go to – without a notebook,” Roberts said. "I’m always using what’s called the writer’s eye. Whether it’s conversations I overhear, somebody I see on the street or a building I pass that catches my attention, if it’s interesting I will make a note of it (for future use)."

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Roberts, who turned 74 on Monday, is celebrating the release of his 25th book, "The Cleveland Creep."

It’s the 15th in a series featuring private eye Milan Jacovich, who Roberts' publisher, Gray & Co., describes as "a former Kent State University football player and ex-cop with a taste for klobasa sandwiches and Stroh's beer and a knack for finding trouble on the streets of Cleveland."

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The streets of Cleveland are very familiar to Roberts, whose first trip to the city in 1987 changed the course of his life.

The Chicago-born Lester Roubert was a fledgling actor when he moved to New York as a young man and ended up writing for such classic television shows as Candid Camera and The Jackie Gleason Show.

Those jobs led Roberts to Hollywood, where he became the first producer of The Hollywood Squares. Throughout the ensuing 24 years, Roberts wrote and/or produced more than 2,500 half-hours of network and syndicated TV shows. Among them were The Lucy Show, The Andy Griffith Show and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Roberts said that era of his life was spent forming friendships with big-name celebrities and attending red-carpet events. But turning 40 in a city that values youth more than the wisdom and experience that come with age prompted Roberts to seek a new lifestyle, he said.

In 1987 Roberts penned his first novel, An Infinite Number of Monkeys, about a Los Angeles actor-turned-private-eye named Saxon. That same year he responded to a job posting in Variety seeking a writer to create a lottery show for Ohio.

"I had never been to Cleveland before. I wasn’t even sure where in Ohio it was located," Roberts said. "When I got off the plane that January, it was the first time I’d seen snow in 20-some years. As we were driving over the bridge, I looked at downtown and the Terminal Tower and thought it looked pretty. Within two weeks I totally fell in love with Cleveland."

Roberts remained in the city for four months to launch the lottery show Cash Explosion, which continues today. When he returned to Los Angeles, it was with the inspiration to write his first Milan Jacovich mystery, Pepper Pike.

"I started coming back to promote the book and started research on the next one. Every time I came here, I fell more in love with the Greater Cleveland area," Roberts said. "I had no idea the impact it was going to have on Northeast Ohio ... I never dreamed that 25 years later I’d be sitting here talking about Milan Jacovich."

In September 1990, after writing his third Milan novel, Roberts became a permanent Ohio resident. He lived happily in Cleveland Heights for nearly 20 years, but a decade of driving back and forth to see girlfriend Holly Albin in Cuyahoga Falls was wearing on him.

"It used to be a 50-minute drive to see her, now it’s a six-minute drive," Roberts said with a broad smile. "We looked for apartments in the vicinity and found the one I’m in now. I look out the window at a meadow that slopes down to a pond with geese and ducks to feed every day."

Roberts loves Stow’s proximity to Cleveland – just 40 minutes from Public Square, he pointed out.

"I’m still there (in Cleveland) twice a week, which is less than I used to go. I love the restaurants, the culture, the fact that we have three major sports teams, love or leave 'em … I wasn’t a football fan until I moved here. Now I suffer along with every other Browns fan," he said.

Speaking of football, Roberts had an interesting reason for creating his Milan Jacovich character as a former Kent State football player.

"When I came to Ohio in 1987 to do the lottery show, (a friend from high school) called and said he saw me on a television interview. I asked where he was living and he said, 'In the president’s house at Kent State University.'"

That call from Dr. Michael Schwartz reignited a friendship that had faded after graduation in 1954 from Chicago’s Senn High School. In May 2009, just before retiring as president of Cleveland State University, Schwartz awarded Roberts an honorary doctorate of humane letters. "That meant so much to me," Roberts said.

The author of dozens of short stories and six screenplays is already working on his next Milan novel, tentatively named Whiskey Island and planned for release next year.

Roberts co-hosts a movie-review radio show, Greenlight Reviews, with longtime friend and Hollywood legend Ann Elder.

Still want to know more about Roberts? Check out his 2006 memoir, We’ll Always Have Cleveland, read his frequent blog posts on his website or become his Facebook friend!

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