Cornell Woolrich

Woolrich was born in New York City. His parents separated when he was young, and he lived for a time in Mexico with his father before returning to New York to live with his mother, Claire Attalie Woolrich. He attended Columbia University but left in 1926 without graduating when his first novel, Cover Charge, was published. As Eddie Duggan observes, "Woolrich enrolled at New York's Columbia University in 1921 where he spent a relatively undistinguished year until he was taken ill and was laid up for some weeks. It was during this illness (a Rear Window–like confinement involving a gangrenous foot, according to one version of the story) that Woolrich started writing, producing Cover Charge, which was published in 1926." Cover Charge was one of his Jazz Age novels inspired by the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald. A second short story, "Children of the Ritz", won Woolrich the first prize of $10,000 the following year in a competition organised by College Humor and First National Pictures; this led to his working as a screenwriter in Hollywood for First National Pictures. While in Hollywood, Woolrich explored his sexuality, apparently engaging in what Francis M. Nevins Jr. describes as "promiscuous and clandestine homosexual activity" and by marrying Violet Virginia Blackton, the 21-year-old daughter of J. Stuart Blackton, one of the founders of the Vitagraph studio. Failing in both his attempt at marriage and at establishing a career as a screenwriter (the unconsummated marriage was annulled in 1933; Woolrich garnered no screen credits), Woolrich sought to resume his life as a novelist: When he turned to pulp and detective fiction, Woolrich's output was so prolific his work was often published under one of his many pseudonyms. Duggan wrote: In later years, he socialized on occasion in Manhattan bars with Mystery Writers of America colleagues and younger fans such as writer Ron Goulart. He moved later to the Sheraton-Russell on Park Avenue and became a virtual recluse. In his 60s, with his eyesight failing, lonely, wracked by guilt over his homosexuality, tortured by self-doubt, alcoholic and a diabetic, Woolrich neglected himself to such a degree that he allowed a foot infection to become gangrenous which resulted, early in 1968, in the amputation of a leg. After the amputation and a conversion to Catholicism, Woolrich returned to the Sheraton-Russell, requiring the use of a wheelchair. Some of the staff there would take Woolrich down to the lobby so he could look out on the passing traffic. Woolrich did not attend the premiere of Truffaut's film of his novel The Bride Wore Black in 1968, even though it was held in New York City. He died September 25, 1968. Woolrich bequeathed his estate of about $850,000 to Columbia University to endow scholarships in his mother's memory for writing students. ==Bibliography==

• Manhattan Love Song (1934) (based on the novel), directed by Leonard Fields • Convicted (1938) (based on the short story "Face Work"), directed by Leon Barsha • Street of Chance (1942) (based on the novel The Black Curtain), directed by Jack Hively • The Leopard Man (1943) (novel Black Alibi), directed by Jacques Tourneur • Phantom Lady (1944) (based on the novel, as "William Irish"), directed by Robert Siodmak • The Mark of the Whistler (1944) (based on the story "Dormant Account"), directed by William Castle • Deadline at Dawn (1946) (based on the novel, as "William Irish"), the only film directed by stage director Harold Clurman • Black Angel (1946) (based on the novel), directed by Roy William Neill • The Chase (1946) (based on the novel The Black Path of Fear). directed by Arthur Ripley • Fall Guy (1947) (based on the story "Cocaine"), directed by Reginald Le Borg • The Guilty (1947) (based on the story "He Looked Like Murder"), directed by John Reinhardt • Fear in the Night (1947) (based on the story "Nightmare"), directed by Maxwell Shane • The Return of the Whistler (1948) (based on the story "All at Once, No Alice"), directed by D. Ross Lederman • ''I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes'' (1948) (based on the story), directed by William Nigh • Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) (based on the novel), directed by John Farrow • The Window (1949) (based on the story "The Boy Cried Murder"), directed by Ted Tetzlaff • No Man of Her Own (1950) (based on the novel I Married a Dead Man, as "William Irish"), directed by Mitchell Leisen • The Earring (1951) (based on the story "The Death Stone"), directed by León Klimovsky • The Trace of Some Lips (1952) (based on the story "Collared"), directed by Juan Bustillo Oro • If I Should Die Before I Wake (1952), directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen • ''Don't Ever Open That Door'' (1952) (an anthology film based on the stories "Somebody on the Phone" and "Humming Bird Comes Home") directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen • Rear Window (1954) (based on the story "It Had to Be Murder"), directed by Alfred Hitchcock • Obsession (1954) (based on the story "Silent as the Grave"), directed by Jean Delannoy • The Glass Eye (1956), directed by Antonio Santillán • Nightmare (1956) (based on the story), directed by Maxwell Shane • Escapade (1957) (based on the story "Cinderella and the Mob"), directed by Ralph Habib • Ah, Bomb! (1964) (based on the story Adventures of a Fountain Pen), directed by Kihachi Okamoto • The Boy Cried Murder (1966) (based on the story The Boy Cried Murder), directed by George P. Breakston • The Bride Wore Black (1968) (based on the novel), directed by François Truffaut • Mississippi Mermaid (1969) (based on the novel Waltz into Darkness), directed by François Truffaut • Kati Patang (1970) (based on the novel I Married a Dead Man), directed by Shakti Samanta • Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972) (based on the novel Rendezvous in Black), directed by Umberto Lenzi • ''You'll Never See Me Again'' (1973), TV Movie directed by Jeannot Szwarc • Martha (1974) (based on the story For the Rest of Her Life), directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • Gun Moll (1975) (based on the story "Collared"), directed by Giorgio Capitani • Union City (1980) (based on the story "The Corpse Next Door"), directed by Marcus Reichert • I Married a Shadow (1983) (based on the novel I Married a Dead Man) • Cloak & Dagger (1984) (story "The Boy Who Cried Murder"), directed by Richard Franklin • ''I'm Dangerous Tonight'' (1990) (based on the story "I'm Dangerous Tonight"), directed by Tobe Hooper • Mrs. Winterbourne (1996) (based on the novel "I Married a Dead Man"), directed by Richard Benjamin • Rear Window (1998) (based on the story "It Had to Be Murder"), directed by Jeff Bleckner • Original Sin (2001) (based on the novel Waltz into Darkness), directed by Michael Cristofer • ''Four O'Clock'' (2006) (based on the story "Three O'Clock") ==References==