John Henry Noyes Collier (3 May 1901 – 6 April 1980) was a British-born writer and screenwriter best known for his short stories, many of which appeared in The New Yorker from the 1930s to the '50s. Many were collected in The John Collier Reader (Knopf, 1972); earlier collections include a 1951 volume, Fancies and Goodnights, which won the International Fantasy Award and remains in print. Individual stories are frequently anthologized in fantasy collections. John Collier's writing has been praised by authors such as Anthony Burgess, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon, Wyndham Lewis, and Paul Theroux. He appears to have given few interviews in his life; those include conversations with biographer Betty Richardson, Tom Milne, and Max Wilk.

Life

Born in London in 1901, John Collier was the son of John George and Emily Mary Noyes Collier. He had one sister, Kathleen Mars Collier. His father, John George Collier, was one of seventeen children, and could not afford formal education; he worked as a clerk. Nor could John George afford schooling for his son beyond prep school; John Collier and Kathleen were educated at home. He was privately educated by his uncle Vincent Collier, a novelist. Biographer Betty Richardson wrote:

The film Sylvia Scarlett starred Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Brian Aherne, and Edmund Gwenn; it was the comic story of a widower, his daughter Sylvia who disguises herself as a boy, and a con man; Collier's collaborators on the script were Gladys Unger and Mortimer Offner. Wilk writes that the film was considered bizarre at the time, but decades later, it enjoys a cult following.

Collier landed in Hollywood on May 16, 1935, but, he told Wilk, after Sylvia Scarlett he returned to England. There, he spent a year working on Elephant Boy for director Zoltan Korda.

Collier suggested a way to make the footage cohere into a story and to make "a star out of that little boy, Sabu." After these two unorthodox starts to screenwriting, Collier was on his way to a new writing career.

Screenplays

Collier returned to Hollywood, where he wrote prolifically for film and television. He contributed notably to the screenplays of The African Queen along with James Agee and John Huston, The War Lord, I Am a Camera (adapted from The Berlin Stories and remade later as Cabaret), Her Cardboard Lover, Deception and Roseanna McCoy.

Awards

  • Poetry award granted by the Paris literary magazine This Quarter for his poetry collection Gemini.
  • International Fantasy Award for Fiction (1952) for Fancies and Goodnights (1951).
  • Edgar Award for Best Short Story (1952) for Fancies and Goodnights (1951).

Death

Collier died of a stroke on 6 April 1980, in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California. Near the end of his life, he wrote, "I sometimes marvel that a third-rate writer like me has been able to palm himself off as a second-rate writer."

Collections of Collier's papers

  • The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin's papers "represent his transition from a poet to writer of novels, short stories, and screenplays. The bulk of the papers are manuscripts covering several genres, although a substantial amount of correspondence is also included." (Grams erroneously cites a later publication, the 13 December 1939 issue of The Tattler [sic, for The Tatler].) This story has been dramatised many times: once for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, three times for the Suspense radio series (Peter Lorre portrayed the main character in the first broadcast in 1943; the 1948 and 1956 broadcasts both starred Herbert Marshall), as well as once for an episode of Tales of the Unexpected.
  • "Bottle Party" – A jinn (genie) tricks a man into taking his place in the bottle.
  • "Cancel All I Said" – A couple's young daughter takes a screen test. The couple's lives are torn apart by the studio head's spoken offer to make the child a star.
  • "The Chaser" – A young man buying a genuine love potion cannot understand why the seller sells love potions for a dollar, but also offers a colorless, tasteless, undetectable poison at a much, much higher price.
  • "Evening Primrose" – Probably his most famous; about people who live in a department store, hiding during the day and coming out at night. Betty Richardson wrote that the store is "the Valhalla, of course, of a consumer society ... populated by acquisitive people who pose as mannequins by daylight; by night, they emerge to grab what they want": "Happy to sacrifice all human emotions—love, pity, integrity—for the sake of consumer goods, these denizens have their own pecking order and police. The primary duty of the latter is to suppress any rebellion against this materialistic society."

Teleplays

  • "The Man in the Royal Suite" – Adapted by Collier from a novel by Edgar Wallace for The Four Just Men, 27 April 1960 (Season 1, Episode 27).
  • "I Spy" – Adapted by Collier from the play by John Mortimer (of Rumpole of the Bailey fame) for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 5 December 1961 (Season 7, Episode 9), starring Kay Walsh and Eric Barker.
  • "Maria" – Written for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 24 October 1961 (Season 7, Episode 3), starring Norman Lloyd and Nita Talbot.
  • "The Magic Shop" – Adapted by Collier and James Parish from the 1903 story by H. G. Wells of the same title, written for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, 10 January 1964 (Season 2, Episode 13), starring Leslie Nielsen and Peggy McCay.

Adaptations

Collier's short story "Evening Primrose" was the basis of a 1966 television musical by Stephen Sondheim, and it was also adapted for the radio series Escape and by BBC Radio. Several of his stories, including "Back for Christmas", "Wet Saturday" and "De Mortuis", were adapted for the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The short story "Green Thoughts" may have inspired Little Shop of Horrors. for Gruen Guild Theater, 19 June 1952 (Season 2, Episode 7), starring Bill Baldwin, William Challee and Billy Curtis.

  • "De Mortuis" – Adapted for Star Tonight as "Concerning Death", 17 February 1955 (Season 1, Episode 3), starring Edward Andrews and Jo Van Fleet.
  • "Back for Christmas" – Adapted by Francis M. Cockrell for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 4 March 1956 (Season 1, Episode 23), starring John Williams and Isobel Elsom.
  • "Wet Saturday" – Adapted by Marian B. Cockrell for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 30 September 1956 (Season 2, Episode 1), starring Cedric Hardwicke and John Williams.
  • "De Mortuis" – Adapted by Francis M. Cockrell for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 14 October 1956 (Season 2, Episode 3), starring Robert Emhardt, Cara Williams, and Henry Jones.
  • "None Are So Blind" – Adapted by James P. Cavanagh for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 28 October 1956 (Season 2, Episode 5), starring Hurd Hatfield and Mildred Dunnock.
  • "Youth from Vienna" – Adapted, directed, and hosted by Orson Welles as "The Fountain of Youth," a 1956 television pilot for a proposed anthology series, broadcast on 16 September 1958 as an episode of Colgate Theatre (Season 1, Episode 5).
  • "Anniversary Gift" – Adapted by Harold Swanton for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 1 November 1959 (Season 5, Episode 6), starring Harry Morgan and Barbara Baxley.
  • "The Chaser" – Adapted by Robert Presnell Jr. for The Twilight Zone, 13 May 1960 (Season 1, Episode 31), starring John McIntire, Patricia Barry and George Grizzard.
  • "The Small Elephants" – Adapted by Russell Beggs for G.E. True Theater, 12 March 1961 (Season 9, Episode 21), starring Ronald Reagan as Host, Jonathan Harris, Barbara Nichols, Cliff Robertson, and George Sanders.
  • "Evening Primrose" – Adapted by James Goldman as a 1966 television movie directed by Paul Bogart, starring Anthony Perkins, Dorothy Stickney and Larry Gates, with songs by Stephen Sondheim.
  • 'Special Delivery" – Adapted by Michael Ashe and Paul Wheeler as "Eve" for Journey to the Unknown, 26 September 1968 (Season 1, Episode 01), starring Carol Lynley, Dennis Waterman and Michael Gough.
  • "Evening Primrose" – Adapted by Jon Bing and Tor Åge Bringsværd as Nattmagasinet, a 1970 Norwegian television film.
  • "Sleeping Beauty" – Adapted by James B. Harris as Some Call It Loving, a 1973 feature film starring Zalman King, Carol White, Tisa Farrow and Richard Pryor.
  • "Back for Christmas" – Adapted by Denis Cannan for Tales of the Unexpected, 31 May 1980 (Season 2, Episode 14), starring Roald Dahl (Introducer), Richard Johnson, Siân Phillips and Avril Elgar.
  • "De Mortuis" – Adapted by Robin Chapman as "Never Speak Ill of the Dead" for Tales of the Unexpected, 24 May 1981 (Season 4, Episode 8), starring Colin Blakely, Warren Clarke and Keith Drinkel.
  • "Youth from Vienna" – Adapted by Ross Thomas for Tales of the Unexpected, 2 July 1983 (Season 6, Episode 13).
  • "Wet Saturday" – Adapted by Collier for Tales of the Unexpected, 7 July 1984 (Season 7, Episode 8).
  • "Bird of Prey" – Adapted by Ross Thomas for Tales of the Unexpected, 4 August 1984 (Season 7, Episode 10).
  • "In the Cards" – Adapted by Ross Thomas for Tales of the Unexpected, 14 July 1985 (Season 8, Episode 2), starring Susan Strasberg, Max Gail, Elaine Giftos, and Kenneth Tigar.
  • "Anniversary Gift" – Adapted by Rob Hedden for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 28 February 1987 (Season 2, Episode 6), starring Pamela Sue Martin and Peter Dvorsky.
  • "In the Cards" – Adapted by Andy Wolk as "Dead Right" for Tales from the Crypt, 21 April 1990 (Season 2, Episode 1), starring Demi Moore and Jeffrey Tambor.

Notes

References

Further reading

  • John Collier Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin