Irving Stone was born Irvin Tenenbaum on July 14, 1903, in San Francisco, California. He earned a Bachelor's Degree from U. C. Berkeley in 1923 and a Master's Degree in 1924 from the University of Southern California. Stone first came to prominence with the publication of Lust for Life, a vivid fictionalized biography of the painter Vincent Van Gogh. He is known for his historically accurate fictionalized biographies. Stone won a Western Spur Award for Men to Match My Mountains and was a member of the Western Writers of America in 1959.