Content deleted Content added
→Biography: “more” Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
|||
Line 31:
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.<ref name=ED/> For example, "William Irish" was the byline in ''Dime Detective Magazine'' (February 1942) on his 1942 story "It Had to Be Murder", source of the 1954 [[Alfred Hitchcock]] movie ''[[Rear Window]]'' and itself based on H.G. Wells' short story "Through a Window". [[François Truffaut]] filmed Woolrich's ''[[The Bride Wore Black (novel)|The Bride Wore Black]]'' and ''Waltz into Darkness'' in 1968 and 1969, respectively, the latter as ''[[Mississippi Mermaid]]''. Ownership of the copyright in Woolrich's original story "It Had to Be Murder" and its use for ''Rear Window'' was litigated before the [[United States Supreme Court|US Supreme Court]] in ''[[Stewart v. Abend]]'', 495 U.S. 207 (1990).
He returned to New York, where he and his mother moved into the [[Hotel Marseilles]] (Broadway and West 103rd Street on Manhattan's [[Upper West Side]]). Eddie Duggan observes that "[a]lthough his writing made him wealthy, Woolrich and his mother lived in a series of seedy hotel rooms, including the squalid Hotel Marseilles apartment building in Harlem [sic], among a group of thieves, prostitutes and lowlifes that would not be out of place in Woolrich's dark fictional world."<ref name=ED/> Woolrich lived there until his mother's death on October 6, 1957, which prompted his move to the slightly more upscale Hotel Franconia (20 West 72nd Street near Central Park).<ref>Nevins, Francis M. "Introduction," ''Tonight, Somewhere in New York''. Carroll & Graf, 2001.</ref> Duggan wrote:
{{blockquote | [After] Woolrich's mother died in 1957, he [went] into a sharp physical and mental decline.}}
In later years, he socialized on occasion in Manhattan bars with [[Mystery Writers of America]] colleagues and younger fans such as writer [[Ron Goulart]].<ref>Goulart, Ron: "The Ghost of Cornell Woolrich" ''The Twilight Zone Magazine'', December 1984, pp. 16–17</ref> 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.
| |||