Fredric Whitney Ellsworth (November 27 1908 – September 7 1980) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
comic bookA comic book is a magazine made up of narrative artwork, often accompanied by dialog and often including brief descriptive prose...
editorThe term editor may refer to:As a person who does editing:* Editor in chief, having final responsibility for a publication's operations and policies* Copy editing, making formatting changes and other improvements to text...
, and sometime
writerA writer is anyone who creates a written work, though the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms.-Profession:...
and
artistThe definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. the worlds best artist is a man named mitchell peter lay who is often loved by the ladies. The common useage in both everyday speech and...
for
DC ComicsDC Comics is one of the largest and most popular American comic book and related media companies, along with Marvel Comics. It is the publishing division of DC Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary company of Warner Bros. Entertainment...
during the period known to historians and fans as the
Golden Age of Comic BooksThe Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s...
. He was also DC's "movie studio contact," becoming both a producer and story editor on the TV series
The Adventures of Superman.
Biography
Whitney "Whit"
Ellsworth was born in
BrooklynBrooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located southwest of Queens on the western tip of Long Island. An independent city until its consolidation with New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous borough, with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area...
,
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. He took a cartooning course at the
YMCAThe Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide movement of more than 45 million members from 124 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs....
in Brooklyn and worked on the syndicated features
Dumb Dora (for Newspaper Feature Service),
Embarrassing Moments (providing plots, pencils and inks for both) and
Just Kids (assisting with pencils and inks, for the
King Features SyndicateKing Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers around the world...
) between 1927 and 1929. In the early 1930s, he began working on another syndicated feature,
Tillie the ToilerTillie the Toiler was a newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Russ Westover who initially worked on his concept of a flapper character in a strip he titled Rose of the Office...
for King, as well as writing gag cartoons, articles and features for the
Newark Star-Eagle/Ledger newspaper (1931-1934), also finding time to work on a number of
pulp magazinePulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines. They were widely published from 1896 through the 1950s. The term pulp fiction can also refer to mass market paperbacks since the 1950s....
stories throughout the 1930s.
National Allied Publications (DC)
In late 1934, he became associated with
Major Malcolm Wheeler-NicholsonMajor Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson was an American pulp magazine writer and entrepreneur who pioneered the American comic book, publishing the first such periodical consisting solely of original material rather than reprints of newspaper comic strips...
's fledgling company National Allied Publications, later known as
DC ComicsDC Comics is one of the largest and most popular American comic book and related media companies, along with Marvel Comics. It is the publishing division of DC Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary company of Warner Bros. Entertainment...
. Initially an assistant editor, before becoming associate editor (1936-38), Ellsworth worked on such titles as
Billy the Kid,
Little Linda and
More Fun ComicsMore Fun Comics, originally titled New Fun: The Big Comic Magazine a.k.a. New Fun Comics, was a 1935-1947 American comic book anthology that introduced several major superhero characters and was the first comic-book series to feature solely original material rather than reprints of newspaper comic...
, as well as producing cover roughs for several years. Ellsworth left the company in c. 1937-38 for a brief hiatus in
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
before returning to DC a couple of years later. He subsequently served as editorial director until c. 1951-1953, in particular on such titles as the flagship titles
Action ComicsAction Comics is an American comic book series which introduced Superman, the first major superhero character as the term is popularly defined...
,
Adventure ComicsAdventure Comics is a comic book series published by DC Comics from 1935 to 1983. It ran for 503 issues , making it the fifth-longest-running DC series, behind Detective Comics, Action Comics, Superman and Batman...
,
BatmanBatman is an ongoing comic book series featuring the DC Comics hero of the same name. The character first appeared in Detective Comics #27, published in May 1939. Batman proved to be so popular that a self-titled ongoing comic book series began publication in the spring of 1940...
,
Detective ComicsDetective Comics is an American comic book published monthly by DC Comics since 1937, best-known for introducing the iconic superhero Batman. It is, along with Action Comics, the book that launched with the debut of Superman, one of the medium's signature series, and the source of its company's name...
and
SupermanSuperman is a comic book published by DC Comics. The character Superman began as one of several anthology features in the National Periodical Publications comic book Action Comics #1 . The strip proved so popular that National launched Superman into his own self-titled comic book, the first for...
between 1939 and 1951, and later on such diverse titles as
The Adventures of Alan Ladd,
All-Star Comics,
Green LanternGreen Lantern is the name of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 ....
,
Mr. District Attorney,
Real Fact Comics,
Real Screen Comics,
ScribblyScribbly is a comic that runs daily in the Dutch edition of the Metro free newspaper, and has done so for the past five years. It is written and drawn by Jan-Paul Arends. Seven albums have been published containing the daily strips...
,
SuperboySuperboy is the name of several fictional characters that have been published by DC Comics, most of them youthful incarnations of Superman. These characters have also been the main characters of four ongoing Superboy comic book series published by DC....
and
Wonder WomanWonder Woman is a DC Comics superhero created by William Moulton Marston. First appearing in All Star Comics #8 , she is one of three characters to have been continuously published by DC Comics since the company's 1944 inception .Wonder Woman is a member of an all-female tribe of Amazons...
(among others) between 1948 and 1951.
Pulps
Ellsworth also wrote short stories for the pulp titles
Black Bat,
G-Man (including the
Dan Fowler novel "Spotlight on Murder" in September 1942) and
Phantom Detective (for which title he certainly
ghostedA ghostwriter is a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other texts that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, magazine articles, or other written...
two pulps - #76
Murder at the World's Fair and #77
The Forty Thieves in June and July 1939), among others.
Comics, including Batman
Acting as DC's major creative guide and editor during the company's early years, Ellsworth oversaw editorially both scripts
and art for several diverse comics (including the above as well as
World's Best Comics and
World's Finest ComicsWorld's Finest Comics was a comic book series published by DC Comics from 1941 to 1986. The series was initially titled World's Best Comics for its first issue; issue #2 switched to the more familiar name....
et al.), developed a number of projects (including creating
Congo BillCongo Bill was a long running DC Comics adventure comic strip, first published in More Fun Comics #56 , created by Whitney Ellsworth and George Papp. The strip ran in various DC Comics titles until Action Comics #248 , when Congo Bill was transformed into Congorilla, which ran until April 1961...
in 1941) and wrote several more, including
Hollywood Screen Shots (1936) (which, like some others, he also pencilled an inked),
Slam BradleySamuel Emerson "Slam" Bradley is a fictional character that has appeared in various comic book series published by DC Comics. He is a private detective who exists in DC's main shared universe, known as the DC Universe...
,
Genius Jones,
Laughing at Life,
Speed SaundersCyrill "Speed" Saunders is a DC Comics character who first appeared in Detective Comics #1 . He was an adventurer and detective whose occupation was for a long time never specified. He seemed not to report to anyone, but was able to order people around. Eventually, it was revealed that he was a...
and
StarmanStarman is a name used by several different fictional DC Comics superheroes, most prominently Ted Knight and his son Jack.Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Jack Burnley, the original Starman, Ted Knight, first appeared in Adventure Comics #61...
, among many other characters and comics.
He also sketched "rough cover layouts for DC's top titles," including notably some for "
BatmanBatman is an ongoing comic book series featuring the DC Comics hero of the same name. The character first appeared in Detective Comics #27, published in May 1939. Batman proved to be so popular that a self-titled ongoing comic book series began publication in the spring of 1940...
and
Detective ComicsDetective Comics is an American comic book published monthly by DC Comics since 1937, best-known for introducing the iconic superhero Batman. It is, along with Action Comics, the book that launched with the debut of Superman, one of the medium's signature series, and the source of its company's name...
until about 1946."
Newspaper strip
Ellsworth was also the first writer on the
Batman & RobinThe Batman comic strip began a few years after the creation of the comic book Batman. At first titled Batman and Robin, a later incarnation was shortened to Batman. The comic strip had three major and two minor runs in American newspapers....
newspaper stripA comic strip is a sequence of cartoons that tells a story, often humorous, though adventures and soap opera-like dramas are also prevalent. They are written and drawn by a comics artist or cartoonist, and many are published on a recurring basis in newspapers and on the Internet.In the UK and the...
, which appeared first on Sundays and later on weekdays. Featuring artwork primarily from
Sheldon MoldoffSheldon "Shelly" Moldoff is an American comic book artist best known for co-creating such DC Comics characters as Hawkgirl and Poison Ivy, and as one of Bob Kane's primary "ghost artists" on the superhero Batman...
and
Joe GiellaJoe Giella is an American comic book artist best known as a DC Comics inker during the Silver Age of comic books. For a picture of him and his work, see his biography card at the , of which he is a member.-Early life and career:...
, Ellsworth wrote the strip between 1966 and 1970, whereupon
E. Nelson BridwellEdward Nelson Bridwell was a writer for Mad magazine and various comic books published by DC Comics. One of the writers for the Batman comic strip and Super Friends, he also wrote The Inferior Five, among comics...
took over for a couple of years.
TV and film
In addition to his extensive comics work, Ellsworth "was DC's movie studio contact" on a number of projects, keeping his "editorial director" title, but working mainly on "DC properties in Hollywood" between c. 1951-1959.
The Superman serials
Ellsworth was the representative from National Comics during the production of the 1948 serial
SupermanSuperman is a 15-part black-and-white Columbia film serial based on the comic book character Superman. It stars an uncredited Kirk Alyn and Noel Neill as Lois Lane. It is notable as the first live-action appearance of Superman on film and for the longevity of its distribution...
, a position which gave him absolute control of the script and production. He initially objected to casting of
Kirk AlynKirk Alyn was an American actor, best known for being the first actor to play Superman on screen, in the 1948 film serial Superman, and its 1950 sequel Atom Man Vs...
as the lead, whom producer
Sam KatzmanSam Katzman was an American film producer and director. Born into a poor Jewish family, Katzman went to work as a stage laborer at the age of 13 in the fledgling East Coast film industry...
had found by looking through studio photographs. This was made even worse when Alyn came in for a screen test, during filming on a historical film, with a goatee and moustache. These initial reservations were eventually overcome and Alyn got the part. Columbia's advertising claimed that they could not get an actor to fill the role so they had hired Superman himself. Kirk Alyn was merely playing Clark Kent.
The Adventures of Superman
Most notably, Ellsworth was a consultant on the theatrical feature
Atom Man Vs. SupermanAtom Man vs. Superman , Columbia's 43rd serial, finds Lex Luthor , secretly the Atom Man, blackmailing the city of Metropolis by threatening to destroy the entire community...
(1950) (also with Kirk Alyn), and co-wrote the sequel
Superman and the Mole MenSuperman and the Mole Men is a 1951 black and white film starring George Reeves as Superman and Phyllis Coates as Lois Lane. It was the first theatrical feature film based on the Superman characters...
(1951) before becoming a producer, episode writer, and
script editorA script editor is a member of the production team of scripted television programmes, usually dramas and comedies. The script editor has many responsibilities including finding new script writers, developing storyline and series ideas with writers, ensuring that scripts are suitable for production...
on the subsequent live-action TV series
The Adventures of Superman (both starring
George ReevesGeorge Reeves was an American actor, best known for his role as Superman in the 1950s television program Adventures of Superman....
as the Man of Steel). In 1958, he created a pilot titled
Superpup, which attempted to capitalise on that series' success by recasting the
SupermanSuperman is a fictional character, a comic book superhero widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective Comics, Inc...
mythos in a fictional universe populated by dogs instead of people.
Three years later, Ellsworth helped produce another ultimately-aborted pilot for another spin-off series called
The Adventures of SuperboyThe Adventures of Superboy was a proposed TV series that was put into production in 1961. It was meant to capitalize on the success of Adventures of Superman, which was cancelled years earlier. A revival was planned, but abandoned following the death of George Reeves, but only a pilot episode,...
.
Other
According to noted comics historian
Jerry BailsJerry Gwin Bails was an American popular culturist. Known as The Father of Comic Book Fandom, he was one of the first scholars to approach the comic book genre as a field worthy of serious academic study, and was the major guiding light in the establishment of a concerted comics fandom network in...
, Ellsworth was also a consultant on the two
Batman serialsThere were two serials released in the 1940s pertaining to the character Batman:*Batman from 1943*Batman and Robin from 1949...
in
1943Batman was a 15-chapter serial released in 1943 by Columbia Pictures. The serial starred Lewis Wilson as Batman and Douglas Croft as Robin. J. Carrol Naish played the villain, an original character named Dr. Daka. Rounding out the cast were Shirley Patterson as Linda Page , and William Austin as...
and
1949Batman and Robin is a 15-chapter serial released by Columbia Pictures.Robert Lowery played Batman, while Johnny Duncan played Robin...
; the
Superman serialSuperman is a 15-part black-and-white Columbia film serial based on the comic book character Superman. It stars an uncredited Kirk Alyn and Noel Neill as Lois Lane. It is notable as the first live-action appearance of Superman on film and for the longevity of its distribution...
starring Kirk Alyn that was a precursor to the later live-action Superman features, and the
Congo BillCongo Bill was a long running DC Comics adventure comic strip, first published in More Fun Comics #56 , created by Whitney Ellsworth and George Papp. The strip ran in various DC Comics titles until Action Comics #248 , when Congo Bill was transformed into Congorilla, which ran until April 1961...
serial (1949). He is listed as having been - for "one week only" - a consultant on the 1966
BatmanBatman is a 1960s American television series, based on the DC comic book character of the same name, which starred Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin, two crime-fighting heroes who defended "Gotham City". It aired on the American Broadcasting Company network for two and a half seasons...
TV series (with
Adam WestAdam West is an American actor best known for his lead role in the 1960s TV series Batman and the film of the same name...
), and a writer for the
Superman radio showThe Adventures of Superman was a long runing radio serial that originally aired from 1940 to 1951, adapted from the DC Comics character. ....
during the
war yearsWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
In addition, he wrote the
Off-BroadwayOff Broadway theater is an umbrella term for a defined set of plays, musicals or revues performed in New York City. Originally referring to the location of a venue and its productions on a street intersecting Broadway in Manhattan's Theatre District, the hub of the theater industry in the United...
production
Maiden Voyage (1935), for the TV series
The Millionaire1 (1955) between c. 1954-56 and produced another pilot in 1961, this time for a "comedy-detective series starring
Sheree NorthSheree North was an American actress, singer, and dancer.-Early life:North was born as Dawn Shirley Crang in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of June, a pearl appraiser and real estate agent. She began dancing in USO shows during World War II at age ten. At 15, she married Fred Bessire and...
" to be called
Here's O'Hare (
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. It first broadcast on television in 1948...
did not pursue the show).
Ellsworth is also said by Bails to have helped co-write
The Godfather.
Later life
Ellsworth left DC (shortly after leaving the Batman newspaper strip) in 1970/1971. He died on September 7 1980 in North Hollywood, California.