 To support his family, Ellin worked as a magazine salesman and distributor, boilermaker's apprentice, steel worker, shipyard worker, dairy farmer, and junior college teacher before serving in the US Army in 1944-1945 during World War II.Afterward, Ellin began writing full time while his family lived on his service unemployment allowance and on his wife's editing salary.Lawrence Block reported, "Ellin was a perfectionist, working slowly and deliberately, producing a page of typescript on a good day.