Swanson graduated from
Grinnell College, class of 1922. He began his career as a writer, but achieved more success as the editor, for eight years during the 1920s, of
College Humor, a Chicago-based monthly magazine. In 1931, he moved to Hollywood, where he received a few minor story credits and then spent a period as an associate producer at
RKO, with eight films to his credit, including two
Wheeler and Woolsey comedies,
Hips, Hips, Hooray! and
Kentucky Kernels. In 1934, Swanson opened his eponymous agency on Sunset Boulevard. He began representing adventurer-writer
Frank Buck in 1935, soon after Buck's appearance in
Fang and Claw, the documentary film based on his book of the same name. Swanson's efforts led to Buck's first appearance in a dramatic role, in the 15-chapter serial
Jungle Menace, released by Columbia Pictures in 1937. The Swanson Agency was unique at that time in its exclusive focus on the sale of motion picture (and later television and radio) rights to literary properties, as well as representation of the writers (including screenwriters) themselves. His dominance in this area is illustrated by the fact that by 1939 his client list reportedly included 80 of the 110 writers then working for
Twentieth Century Fox. At one time or another, he represented
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
James M. Cain,
William Faulkner,
Ernest Haycox,
Katharine Brush,
Frank Gruber,
Paul Gallico,
Charles Bennett,
MacKinlay Kantor, Kenneth Millar (
Ross Macdonald),
Pearl Buck,
Raymond Chandler,
Steve Fisher,
Elmore Leonard,
John O'Hara,
Luke Short (Frederick Glidden),
Joyce Carol Oates,
Paul Theroux,
Joseph Wambaugh,
Philip Wylie and
Cornell Woolrich. Among the many books he sold to the Hollywood studios were
The Postman Always Rings Twice,
The Big Sleep,
Old Yeller,
Butterfield 8 and
The Mosquito Coast. ==Final years==