Ted Bell, a former award-winning advertising copywriter and creative director who abandoned Madison Avenue in his early 50s to recast himself as a bestselling novelist by writing and marketing his Alex Hawke spy thrillers, died Jan. 20 in Hartford, Connecticut. He was 76.
In midcareer, having worked for the biggest agencies, he quit to conjure up best sellers about a British spy named Alex Hawke, who was likened to James Bond.