Gene Thompson
Gene Thompson, born Eugene Allen Thompson on June 28, 1924, in San Francisco, California, was a multifaceted writer known for his work in comedy, drama, and mystery across various media. Thompson's journey into the entertainment industry began in his teenage years when he met influential figures such as actress Dame May Whitty and comedian Groucho Marx, who became his mentor. With Marx's encouragement, he transitioned from acting to writing, landing a job with the radio program Duffy's Tavern, which set the stage for a successful writing career.
He produced scripts for numerous television series, including notable titles like Columbo and My Three Sons, during the 1960s and 1970s. In addition to his television work, Thompson authored mystery novels featuring the character Dade Cooley, a defense attorney in San Francisco. His personal life was equally rich; he married Sylvia Vaughn Sheekman, with whom he had four children, and she later gained recognition as a cookbook author. Thompson's academic pursuits included studying Greek, English, and philosophy at prestigious universities, and he even served in the Army while lecturing in Germany. He passed away on April 14, 2001, at the age of 76, leaving behind a legacy in writing and television.
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Gene Thompson
Author
- Born: June 28, 1924
- Birthplace: San Francisco, California
- Died: April 14, 2001
- Place of death: Los Angeles, California
Biography
Gene Thompson’s life and career were the result of a series of fortunate encounters of the sort that Hollywood loves. Born June 28, 1924, in San Francisco, California, Eugene Allen Thompson was a precocious child and an avid fan of acting. As a teenager, he attended a production of Romeo and Juliet and afterward met actress Dame May Whitty backstage. They began a correspondence and after Thompson graduated from high school at age sixteen, he moved to Los Angeles to take acting lessons from Whitty.
One day while at Whitty’s home, he met comedian and actorGroucho Marx, who took a shine to the young man and invited Thompson home to dinner. At Marx’s house, Thompson rubbed elbows with the likes of dramatist Moss Hart, critic and screenwriter Arthur Sheekman, and Sheekman’s wife, actress Gloria Stuart. Thompson must have left a good impression because Marx asked the teenager to write comedy sketches for him and helped him land a job writing scripts for the popular radio program Duffy’s Tavern. It was the springboard that propelled Thompson into a career as a writer of comedy, drama, and mystery on radio and television as well as in print.
The meeting was fortuitous for Thompson on a personal level, too. In the mid-1950’s, he married Sheekman and Stuart’s daughter, Sylvia Vaughn Sheekman, the start of a forty-five-year union that produced four children between 1957 and 1962: David, Benjamin, Dinah. and Amanda. Sylvia Sheekman Thompson became a cookbook author of note.
At Marx’s insistence, Thompson entered college. He attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, and received an A.B. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in Greek, English, and philosophy. He afterward served in Germany as director of publications for the Army Corps of Engineers, taught English to army personnel, and lectured at the University of Heidelberg. He also independently studied music and German at Heidelberg and was later a reader at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.
Back in the United States, Thompson and his family lived in New York and San Francisco, where he primarily wrote advertising copy. In the early 1960’s, he returned to Southern California to reestablish himself as a broadcast writer. For the next two decades, until the late 1970’s, he produced scripts for some twenty different television series, including several entries in the long-running Peter Falk vehicle, Columbo. He also wrote for My Three Sons (1960), The Flying Nun (1967), Love, American Style (1969), Cannon (1971), The Bob Newhart Show (1972), Harry O (1974), and Ellery Queen (1975).
At the end of the 1970’s, Thompson began writing mystery novels. He created the character of Dade Cooley, a sixty-year-old San Francisco defense attorney who appeared in Murder Mystery (1980), Nobody Cared for Kate (1983), and A Cup of Death (1987). Thompson’s luck ran out on April 14, 2001, when he died of cancer at age seventy-six.