Wyllis Cooper
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Wyllis Oswald Cooper (1899 - June 22, 1955) was a writer during the golden age of radio. He is best remembered for creating and writing the programs Lights Out and Quiet, Please.
[edit] Biography
Born Willis Oswald Cooper in Pekin, Illinois, he graduated from Pekin High School in 1916 and soon thereafter joined the U.S. Cavalry where he spent time on the Mexican border. In 1917 he became a part of the Signal Corps and was sent to France during World War I. While in France he was gassed at the Meusse-Argonne Offensive 1. He remained on active duty until 1919 when he left to become an advertising writer, though he maintained his reserve status. By 1930 he was writing advertising copy in Chicago when he left to work for CBS as a continuity editor. Though he worked for CBS, he also freelanced radio scripts including some that were used on the early NBC radio program The Empire Builders.
In 1933 he left CBS for NBC in the same position. In 1934 he created a late night horror radio program called Lights Out, which he also directed. Airing at midnight, the program quickly earned a reputation for its gory deaths and sound effects.
The show would prove to be a long term success, but in 1936 he resigned from NBC and moved to Hollywood, California, where he worked as a screenwriter for various film studios. He wrote the screenplay for the 1939 film Son Of Frankenstein, and a few of the Mr. Moto films. At the same time he continued to provide radio scripts for various series including Hollywood Hotel. Arch Oboler, who took over control of Lights Out when Cooper left, would suggest that Cooper was the first person to create a unique form of radio drama, writing, "Radio drama (as distinguished from theatre plays boiled down to kilocycle size) began at midnight, in the middle thirties, on one of the upper floors of Chicago's Merchandise Mart. The pappy was a rotund writer by the name of Willys Cooper."[1]
About 1940, he moved to New York City where he changed his name from “Willis” to “Wyllis” in order "to please his wife's numerological inclinations". He continued to make his living freelancing radio scripts for various network programs including The Campbell Playhouse, the sponsored successor of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater.
During World War II, he was made a consultant to the Secretary of War and produced, directed and wrote The Army Hour, a weekly news and variety propaganda series.
In 1944, Cooper joined the radio department of New York's Compton Advertising, Inc. In 1947, he created what was arguably his finest radio effort, Quiet, Please, which began over the Mutual Broadcasting System network but which later moved to ABC.
He also wrote and directed a 44-part crime anthology for NBC called Whitehall 1212 that debuted on November 18, 1951. Hosted by Chief Superintendent John Davidson, curator of the Black Museum at Scotland Yard, it featured an all-British cast and told stories inspired by artifacts held by the famous London crime museum. Cooper's show competed with a similar program (hosted by Orson Welles), which ran on Mutual in 1952.
As television began to become the dominant entertainment medium, Cooper experimented with various programs including a series he wrote and directed called Volume One. He also wrote and directed episodes of the prestigious Stage 13 in the early fifties.
Cooper died in High Bridge, New Jersey on June 22, 1955.
