(Reuters) - Facts about novelist Elmore Leonard, who died on Tuesday:
* Leonard was born in New Orleans in 1925 and was still a boy when his family moved to Detroit, where his father worked for General Motors and where the author would set many of his books. He served in the Navy in the South Pacific during World War Two.
* While attending the University of Detroit, he entered writing contests and submitted his work to magazines. He continued writing on the side while working at an advertising agency.
* Leonard's first short stories and novels were Westerns. He switched to crime and mystery fiction in the 1970s.
* Leonard's nearly 50 books and numerous stories yielded more than 20 movies, as well as the cable television series "Justified."
* Two of Leonard's tales were made into movies twice - "3:10 to Yuma" (in 1957 starring Glen Ford and Van Heflin and again in 2007 with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale) and "The Big Bounce" (a 1969 version starring Ryan O'Neal and a 2004 encore with Owen Wilson).
* Leonard was known as "Dutch," a nickname he picked up from high school classmates who took it from Emil "Dutch" Leonard, a Major League Baseball pitcher.
(Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Paul Simao)