Alfred Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880[1] ? December 10, 1946) was an American newspaperman and writer.

He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the Brooklyn or Midtown demi-monde. The adjective "Runyonesque" refers to this type of character as well as to the type of situations and dialog that Runyon depicted. He spun humorous tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, and gangsters, few of whom go by "square" names, preferring instead colorful monikers such as "Nathan Detroit," "Benny Southstreet," "Big Jule," "Harry the Horse," "Good Time Charley," "Dave the Dude," or "The Seldom Seen Kid." Runyon wrote these stories in a distinctive vernacular style: a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in present tense, and always devoid of contractions.

The musical Guys and Dolls was based on two Runyon stories, "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" (Collier's Jan 28, 1933) and "Blood Pressure".[3] The musical also takes characters and story elements from a few other Runyon stories, most notably "Pick The Winner." The film Little Miss Marker (and its remake, Sorrowful Jones) grew from his short story of the same name. The original series Star Trek episode 49 "A Piece Of The Action" is also Runyonese influenced, both in costume and dialog.

Guys and Dolls was adapted into a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. Premiering on Broadway in 1950, the original production ran for 1200 performances and won the Tony Award for Best Musical. The musical has had several Broadway revivals as well as West End productions.

Abe Burrows wrote most of Guys and Dolls, replacing Jo Swerling. The play was selected as the winner for the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. However, because of Burrows' troubles with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), the Trustees of Columbia University, the award's advisory board, vetoed the selection, and no Pulitzer for Drama was awarded that year.

In 1955 Guys and Dolls was adapted into a musical film starring Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra and Vivian Blaine. The film was made by Samuel Goldwyn Productions and distributed by MGM. It was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who also wrote the screenplay. Stubby Kaye, Vivian Blaine, B.S. Pully, and Johnny Silver all repeated their Broadway roles in the film.