Lucille Fletcher Dies
By Adam Bernstein September 4, 2000
Lucille Fletcher, 88, the author of the venerable 1940s radio suspense drama "Sorry, Wrong Number" who then adapted the script for a popular film version starring Barbara Stanwyck, died Aug. 31 at St. Mary's Hospital in Langhorne, Pa., after a stroke.
Ms. Fletcher, who was married to the film composer Bernard Herrmann and later to John Douglass Wallop III, author of the book that became the basis for the musical "Damn Yankees," kept her maiden name professionally. In addition to her radio work, she wrote books and did the libretto for Herrmann's opera version of "Wuthering Heights."
Despite her other credentials, Ms. Fletcher is best known for her scripts from the heyday of radio drama, and her works featured such performers as Orson Welles, Vincent Price and Ida Lupino. Her forte became the thriller, notably the roadside ghost story "The Hitch-hiker" that Welles did on air in 1941.
Ms. Fletcher's most popular play, "Sorry, Wrong Number," became a perennial of high school and community stages, prompted two operas and in 1989 was made into a television film starring Loni Anderson.
The story, concerning a wealthy and married invalid who overhears a phone conversation about her own murder being planned, received the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
Agnes Moorehead played the woman in the 1943 radio broadcast that originally aired as a 22-minute production on the CBS program "Suspense." Stanwyck was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the 1948 film.
"I like to take an agonizing situation which is baffling and haunting, in which a sympathetic leading character is endlessly in doubt, tortured by circumstance, and then see what happens," Ms. Fletcher told The Washington Post in 1963.
Her book career began with "The Daughters of Jasper Clay," published in 1958 by Holt. Her later novels included " . . . And Presumed Dead," "The Girl in Cabin B54" and "Eighty Dollars to Stamford." Her last book was "Mirror Image," published by William Morrow in 1988.
Violet Lucille Fletcher was a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a 1933 English graduate of Vassar College. She got a job at CBS as a publicity writer and soon turned to short stories and radio plays to earn extra money.
Her first success came when one of her magazine short stories, a comic tale called "My Client Curly," was spotted by the radio dramatist Norman Corwin. He adapted the story for radio, and the tale also became the basis for the 1944 Cary Grant film "Once Upon a Time."
Other published works-turned-movies included a 1965 adaptation of her book "Blindfold" starring Rock Hudson and Claudia Cardinale.
Ms. Fletcher, a longtime New Yorker, moved to the Washington area in 1950 with Wallop, the author of "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant." She later moved to Oxford, Md., and since the late 1990s lived in Pennsylvania.
Her marriage to Herrmann ended in divorce. Wallop, whom she married in 1949, died in 1985.
Survivors include two daughters from the first marriage, Dorothy "Taffy" Herrmann of New Hope, Pa., and Wendy Harlow of Phoenix, Md.; a sister; and two grandsons.
Washington Post
By Adam Bernstein September 4, 2000
Lucille Fletcher, 88, the author of the venerable 1940s radio suspense drama "Sorry, Wrong Number" who then adapted the script for a popular film version starring Barbara Stanwyck, died Aug. 31 at St. Mary's Hospital in Langhorne, Pa., after a stroke.
Ms. Fletcher, who was married to the film composer Bernard Herrmann and later to John Douglass Wallop III, author of the book that became the basis for the musical "Damn Yankees," kept her maiden name professionally. In addition to her radio work, she wrote books and did the libretto for Herrmann's opera version of "Wuthering Heights."
Despite her other credentials, Ms. Fletcher is best known for her scripts from the heyday of radio drama, and her works featured such performers as Orson Welles, Vincent Price and Ida Lupino. Her forte became the thriller, notably the roadside ghost story "The Hitch-hiker" that Welles did on air in 1941.
Ms. Fletcher's most popular play, "Sorry, Wrong Number," became a perennial of high school and community stages, prompted two operas and in 1989 was made into a television film starring Loni Anderson.
The story, concerning a wealthy and married invalid who overhears a phone conversation about her own murder being planned, received the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
Agnes Moorehead played the woman in the 1943 radio broadcast that originally aired as a 22-minute production on the CBS program "Suspense." Stanwyck was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the 1948 film.
"I like to take an agonizing situation which is baffling and haunting, in which a sympathetic leading character is endlessly in doubt, tortured by circumstance, and then see what happens," Ms. Fletcher told The Washington Post in 1963.
Her book career began with "The Daughters of Jasper Clay," published in 1958 by Holt. Her later novels included " . . . And Presumed Dead," "The Girl in Cabin B54" and "Eighty Dollars to Stamford." Her last book was "Mirror Image," published by William Morrow in 1988.
Violet Lucille Fletcher was a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a 1933 English graduate of Vassar College. She got a job at CBS as a publicity writer and soon turned to short stories and radio plays to earn extra money.
Her first success came when one of her magazine short stories, a comic tale called "My Client Curly," was spotted by the radio dramatist Norman Corwin. He adapted the story for radio, and the tale also became the basis for the 1944 Cary Grant film "Once Upon a Time."
Other published works-turned-movies included a 1965 adaptation of her book "Blindfold" starring Rock Hudson and Claudia Cardinale.
Ms. Fletcher, a longtime New Yorker, moved to the Washington area in 1950 with Wallop, the author of "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant." She later moved to Oxford, Md., and since the late 1990s lived in Pennsylvania.
Her marriage to Herrmann ended in divorce. Wallop, whom she married in 1949, died in 1985.
Survivors include two daughters from the first marriage, Dorothy "Taffy" Herrmann of New Hope, Pa., and Wendy Harlow of Phoenix, Md.; a sister; and two grandsons.
Washington Post
Lucille Fletcher Dies
By Adam Bernstein September 4, 2000
Lucille Fletcher, 88, the author of the venerable 1940s radio suspense drama "Sorry, Wrong Number" who then adapted the script for a popular film version starring Barbara Stanwyck, died Aug. 31 at St. Mary's Hospital in Langhorne, Pa., after a stroke.
Ms. Fletcher, who was married to the film composer Bernard Herrmann and later to John Douglass Wallop III, author of the book that became the basis for the musical "Damn Yankees," kept her maiden name professionally. In addition to her radio work, she wrote books and did the libretto for Herrmann's opera version of "Wuthering Heights."
Despite her other credentials, Ms. Fletcher is best known for her scripts from the heyday of radio drama, and her works featured such performers as Orson Welles, Vincent Price and Ida Lupino. Her forte became the thriller, notably the roadside ghost story "The Hitch-hiker" that Welles did on air in 1941.
Ms. Fletcher's most popular play, "Sorry, Wrong Number," became a perennial of high school and community stages, prompted two operas and in 1989 was made into a television film starring Loni Anderson.
The story, concerning a wealthy and married invalid who overhears a phone conversation about her own murder being planned, received the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
Agnes Moorehead played the woman in the 1943 radio broadcast that originally aired as a 22-minute production on the CBS program "Suspense." Stanwyck was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the 1948 film.
"I like to take an agonizing situation which is baffling and haunting, in which a sympathetic leading character is endlessly in doubt, tortured by circumstance, and then see what happens," Ms. Fletcher told The Washington Post in 1963.
Her book career began with "The Daughters of Jasper Clay," published in 1958 by Holt. Her later novels included " . . . And Presumed Dead," "The Girl in Cabin B54" and "Eighty Dollars to Stamford." Her last book was "Mirror Image," published by William Morrow in 1988.
Violet Lucille Fletcher was a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a 1933 English graduate of Vassar College. She got a job at CBS as a publicity writer and soon turned to short stories and radio plays to earn extra money.
Her first success came when one of her magazine short stories, a comic tale called "My Client Curly," was spotted by the radio dramatist Norman Corwin. He adapted the story for radio, and the tale also became the basis for the 1944 Cary Grant film "Once Upon a Time."
Other published works-turned-movies included a 1965 adaptation of her book "Blindfold" starring Rock Hudson and Claudia Cardinale.
Ms. Fletcher, a longtime New Yorker, moved to the Washington area in 1950 with Wallop, the author of "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant." She later moved to Oxford, Md., and since the late 1990s lived in Pennsylvania.
Her marriage to Herrmann ended in divorce. Wallop, whom she married in 1949, died in 1985.
Survivors include two daughters from the first marriage, Dorothy "Taffy" Herrmann of New Hope, Pa., and Wendy Harlow of Phoenix, Md.; a sister; and two grandsons.
Washington Post
By Adam Bernstein September 4, 2000
Lucille Fletcher, 88, the author of the venerable 1940s radio suspense drama "Sorry, Wrong Number" who then adapted the script for a popular film version starring Barbara Stanwyck, died Aug. 31 at St. Mary's Hospital in Langhorne, Pa., after a stroke.
Ms. Fletcher, who was married to the film composer Bernard Herrmann and later to John Douglass Wallop III, author of the book that became the basis for the musical "Damn Yankees," kept her maiden name professionally. In addition to her radio work, she wrote books and did the libretto for Herrmann's opera version of "Wuthering Heights."
Despite her other credentials, Ms. Fletcher is best known for her scripts from the heyday of radio drama, and her works featured such performers as Orson Welles, Vincent Price and Ida Lupino. Her forte became the thriller, notably the roadside ghost story "The Hitch-hiker" that Welles did on air in 1941.
Ms. Fletcher's most popular play, "Sorry, Wrong Number," became a perennial of high school and community stages, prompted two operas and in 1989 was made into a television film starring Loni Anderson.
The story, concerning a wealthy and married invalid who overhears a phone conversation about her own murder being planned, received the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
Agnes Moorehead played the woman in the 1943 radio broadcast that originally aired as a 22-minute production on the CBS program "Suspense." Stanwyck was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the 1948 film.
"I like to take an agonizing situation which is baffling and haunting, in which a sympathetic leading character is endlessly in doubt, tortured by circumstance, and then see what happens," Ms. Fletcher told The Washington Post in 1963.
Her book career began with "The Daughters of Jasper Clay," published in 1958 by Holt. Her later novels included " . . . And Presumed Dead," "The Girl in Cabin B54" and "Eighty Dollars to Stamford." Her last book was "Mirror Image," published by William Morrow in 1988.
Violet Lucille Fletcher was a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a 1933 English graduate of Vassar College. She got a job at CBS as a publicity writer and soon turned to short stories and radio plays to earn extra money.
Her first success came when one of her magazine short stories, a comic tale called "My Client Curly," was spotted by the radio dramatist Norman Corwin. He adapted the story for radio, and the tale also became the basis for the 1944 Cary Grant film "Once Upon a Time."
Other published works-turned-movies included a 1965 adaptation of her book "Blindfold" starring Rock Hudson and Claudia Cardinale.
Ms. Fletcher, a longtime New Yorker, moved to the Washington area in 1950 with Wallop, the author of "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant." She later moved to Oxford, Md., and since the late 1990s lived in Pennsylvania.
Her marriage to Herrmann ended in divorce. Wallop, whom she married in 1949, died in 1985.
Survivors include two daughters from the first marriage, Dorothy "Taffy" Herrmann of New Hope, Pa., and Wendy Harlow of Phoenix, Md.; a sister; and two grandsons.
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