Joseph Ruscoll | |
|---|---|
| Born | Joseph Russcol November 2, 1906 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | November 19, 1956 (aged 50) Jackson Heights, New York, U.S. |
| Education | Suffolk Law School |
| Occupations | Radio and television writer |
| Spouse | Janet |
| Children | 3 |
| Relatives | David Susskind (cousin) Norman Lear (cousin) |
| Writing career | |
| Years active | 1939–1956 |
Joseph Ruscoll (born Joseph Russcol, November 2, 1906 – November 19, 1956) was an American radio and television writer, perhaps best known for his much produced and adapted radio drama, "The Creeper". Ruscoll was the cousin of producer/talk show host David Susskind and writer-producer Norman Lear.
Born Joseph Russcol on November 2, 1906, in Boston, Massachusetts, he was one of three children born to Russian Jewish immigrants Etta (nee Rubin) and Louis Russcol In a brief interview conducted more than 35 years later, he recalled being "a skinny little kid [who] talked to myself and wore glasses".
Russcol attended the Jehuda Halevi Religious School in Boston, and later Suffolk Law School, graduating in 1928. The following year, he passed the bar in Massachusetts. At various points during that decade (presumably in order to help cover the cost of tuition), Russcol had worked in Boston, first as a bellhop, and later as a short-order cook.
During the nineteen thirties, Russcol practiced law in Boston for a number of years, before moving to New York, where he worked initially as "a Bowery social worker".
The first published mention of Ruscoll as a dramatist—as well as the first in-print usage of that slightly altered family-name spelling under which he would continue to be credited throughout his career—came in the fall of 1939, when the New York Daily News reported that Ruscoll's first published play, a comedy titled Mr. Silver Blows Town, was deemed "a sure thing" by two prominent literary agents, Audrey Wood and Maxim Lieber, both of whom began to shop the play around once they had "managed to stop laughing". The following April, the Arts section of The New York Times reported that both New York's Theatre Guild and noted producer / playwright-screenwriter Ben Hecht had expressed interest in the play, leading to speculation regarding a possible Broadway opening for the upcoming season. The story concludes with the barest thumbnail outline of Mr. Silver's plot, which concerns "the disappearance of the head of a house [and how that] affects other members of a family". In the meantime, the late-summer surfacing of Ruscoll's sophomore effort, Before the Sun Comes Down, was noted that August by agent Wood, via the New York Herald Tribune. In the end, notwithstanding the undeniable buzz generated by these stories, the next two theatre seasons came and went with no indication that either play had ever been—nor was about to be—produced by anyone, least of all on Broadway.
Ruscoll made his radio writing debut in March 1942 on Columbia Workshop, with "The Test", and followed in June on Treasury Star Parade, with "A Modern Scrooge", starring Lionel Barrymore in the title role. By October, both of these scripts had become available to the public, the former via a radio writing textbook written by director Earle McGill, and the latter, in an anthology of TSP's best, penned by producer Bill Bacher.
In February 1943, actor Edmund Gwenn starred as Hercules Mulligan in "The Plot to Kidnap General Washington", an episode of Cavalcade of America adapted by Ruscoll and his wife Janet from information gathered by writer-researcher Carl Carmer. The play was produced at least once more on radio—in 1950, retitled "Mulligan the Mighty", starring James Gleason on CBS's Skippy Hollywood Theatre—and on television in a 1952 episode of NBC's Hallmark Hall of Fame, featuring Joshua Shelley.
On March 31, 1949, Edward G. Robinson starred in "You Can't Die Twice", an episode of Suspense adapted by Walter Newman from a story by Ruscoll.
It seems fitting that Ruscoll's first TV credit should involve his signature work. Adapted in 1949 by Frank Gabrielson for Suspense, "The Creeper" featured Nina Foch, the fifth of eight actresses to play Ruscoll's much imperiled protagonist.
In Variety's review of "Nightmare", the fourth episode of CBS's recently unveiled Joseph Schildkraut Presents (and the first of 2 penned by Ruscoll), Land—aka Robert J. Landry, the trade paper's newly installed managing editor—cannot help but note the stark contrast between this and what he had been compelled to sit through just three weeks prior.
Its fourth Wednesday night show, 'Nightmare' by Joseph Ruscoll, made 100% more sense than the unfortunate debut script. Although dealing, as its title suggests, with a horror dream and produced with lots of tilted-camera shots, this one was light-years ahead in the department of plot intelligibility. Story was triangular and allowed a closeup treatment most of the way. It neatly fit Schildkraut himself as a sweet-talking but cheating spouse. [...] All in all, the imaginative and quasi-arty slants upon which the Schildkraut undertaking (really ambitious for DuMont) was premised now seems to be showing through.
From at least 1940 until his death, Ruscoll was married to fellow writer Janet Ruscoll. They had three children, the eldest being daughter Cynthia and son Ricky. The former, at least during her preteens, performed professionally as a ballet dancer, appearing in a production of The Nutcracker in 1955 at New York City Center.
On November 19, 1956, eighteen days after his fiftieth birthday, Russcoll suffered a fatal heart attack at his home in Jackson Heights, New York. He was survived by his wife and three children.
Joseph Bucoll, 50, died suddenly Monday (19) in his home in Jackson Heights, N. Y., of a heart attack. He had been a radio and television writer for over 25 years, mostly freelance but for one period as a staffer in the CBS Division of Program Writing. His recent tv credits included the Alfred Hitchcock and Ford filmed series. Radio scripts of Russcoll's appeared in a number of anthologies, notably 'Drama on the Air,' 'Treasury Star Parade.' He had done originals for the old Columbia Workshop and for the 1946 incarnation of that series. His wife and three children survive, as do two cousins in show business, David Susskind and gagwriter Norman Lear.
In the first instance of a radio writer collecting from a film company for infringement of a single-shot program title, Joseph Ruscoll, freelance scripter, has received a $2,500 settlement from Edward Small's Reliance Film Productions for latters' using of the title, 'The Creeper.' Ruscoll, who wrote a mystery show for the 'Molle Mystery Theatre' under that title, claimed in court that a valuable property of his had been used without authority. Interesting aspect of the case was that he made no contention that the film company had swiped his plot.
Etta (Russcol) Alpert of Boston and North Adams, Mass, Beloved wife of Joseph, mother of Joseph Russcol of New York. Herbert Russcol of Pittsburgh. Penn., and Anne Sharat of Brookline, Services at the Levine Chapel, 470 Harvard st.. Brookline, Friday, Aux. 9. at 2 p. m.
'The Test' [...] is produced on 'Columbia Workshop,' under the direction of Earle McGill, over CBS-KWKH [...] [A]n unusually built piece in which the sweethearts, now grown old and separated for 30 years, review the events in their lives which led up to their unhappiness, [it] was written by Joseph Ruscoll. How he happened to write it, he doesn't know. He confesses he never had a childhood sweetheart. [...] "I was a skinny little kid,' says Ruscoll. 'Talked to myself and wore glasses.' But how he happened to write a radio play is something else again. Ruscoll was a bell-hop in Boston—he left it to write. He was a hashslinger in Boston—he left it to write. He was an attorney in Boston—he left it to write. He was a Bowery social worker in New York—and quit for the same. Ruscoll, it would seem, was interested in writing.
Jehuda Halevi Religious School: Jacob Blank, Lillian Bloomberg, Sidney Drooker, Jeanette Frank, Ruth Ginsberg, Lillian Goldberg, Lillian Goldstein, Ida Kolodny, Jennie Levine, Rose Lewitzky, Ida Mendel, Anna Russcol, Joseph Russcol, Ruth Savitz, Samuel Silver, Selma Hurwitz, Bernard Weinberg, Alice Schwartz.
The graduates: David A. Keoghan, Harris King, William W. Kirlin, Max Klatzkin, [...] Nathan Rosenfeld, Joseph Rothstein, Joseph Russcol, David J. Ryan,
"'Mr. Silver Blows Town,' a new comedy by a new author named Joseph Ruspredicoll (from Brooklyn) has Audrey Wood and Maxim Lieber (play agent and literary agent, respeectively) considerably excited. It was sent around yesterday after both agents managed to stop laughing. They say it's sure fire.
Aubrey[sic] Wood, of the firm of Liebling-Wood, play brokers, will leave New York today for the firm's Hollywood office. Before leaving, Miss Wood said that John[sic] Ruscoll, author of 'Mr. Homer Blows Town,' has written a new play called 'Before the Sun Comes Down.'
Originally presented on this series in June, it is one of 27 outstanding scripts from the series included in the "Farrar and Rinehart book "Treasury Star Parade." As the name suggests, the play to date the character in Dickens' immortal "Christmas Carol." Barrymore, well known his performance as Scrooge in the Dickens masterpiece, will be heard in the title role.
Joe Ruscoll, author of the 'Our Town' dramatic vignettes heard on the Friday evening 'Caravan' show over WABC, has two of his radio dramas in anthologies this month. His 'The Test' has been included by Earl MacGill in a radio writing text book and Ruscoll's 'A Modern Scrooge' is featured by Bill Bacher in the 'Treasury Star Parade.'
The inspiring tale of a whimsical little tailor-Hercules Mulligan by name--one of the unsung heroes of the Revolutionary War, will be related on "Cavalcade of America" tonight at 7 o'clock oven KTBS, in a dramatization entitled "A Plot to Kidnap Washington.' [...] The script is based on material supplied by Carl Carmer and written by Joseph and Janet Ruscoll.
Veteran screen actor James Gleason stars as a patriotic Irish tailor on CBS's 'Skippy Hollywood Theater' tonight at 7:30 p.m. The production, titled 'Mulligan the Mighty,' is an original story by Janet and Joseph Ruscoll.
Edward G. Robinson hears the news of his own death on a radio broadcast when he stars in the Joe Ruscoll-Walter Newman play, 'You Can't Die Twice' [...] Using the erroneous radio report as a pivot point to collect on a $20,000 insurance policy, Robinson's cunning wife designs a scheme to have him remain 'dead.'
Edward G. Robinson hears the news of his own death on a radio broadcast when he stars in the Joe Ruscoll-Walter Newman play, 'You Can't Die Twice' [...] Using the erroneous radio report as a pivot point to collect on a $20,000 insurance policy, Robinson's cunning wife designs a scheme to have him remain 'dead.'
Nina Foch and Anthony Roas will be starred in Joseph Ruscoll's 'Suspense' drama, 'The Creeper' over WCBS-TV Tuesday night at 9:30.
Its fourth Wednesday night show, 'Nightmare' by Joseph Ruscoll, made 100% more sense than the unfortunate debut script. Although dealing, as its title suggests, with a horror dream and produced with lots of tilted-camera shots, this one was light-years ahead in the dpartment of plot intelligibility. Story was triangular and allowed a closeup treatment mos of the way. It neatly fit Schildkraut hinself as a sweet-talking but cheating spouse. [...] All in all, the imaginative and quasi-arty slants upon which the Schildkraut undertaking (really ambitious for DuMont) was premised now seems to be showing through.
Cynthia, 11-year-old daughter of tv writer Joseph Ruscol, is current[ly] in 'The Nutcracker Ballet' at City Center. She made her professional debut a year ago.
JULIE STEVENS and House Jameson are starred in the 'Colgate J Theater of Romance' production of 'Accent on Youth' Tuesday, over KGLO-CBS at 7:30 p. m. 'Accent on Youth' was written by Samson Raphaelson and was a Broadway hit 1934-35. It is the story of a young woman secretary who falls in love with her boss. Corporal Joseph Ruscoll has adapted the comedy for radio. Ben Ludlow is in charge of the music for the show, Max Loeb is producer-director.
HECHT'S tender love story, 'Miracle in the Rain,' will be given a radio presentation on KGLO-CBS' 'Theater of Romance,' Tuesday, at 7:30 p. m. The radio adaptation is by Joseph Ruscoll. The story revolves about a sensitive young girl who meets a lonely young soldier in the rain, and the deeply religious experience she undergoes on learning that he has been killed in action. Marx Loeb produces and directs.
Primer for Murder,' by Joseph Ruscoll, will be the Mystery Theater presentation over WMAQ-NBC tonight at 9.
Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' will be presented in 'Studio One,' KNX at 6:30. Director Fletcher Markle will portray Heatheliff, Miriam Wolfe, Cathy and Anne Burr, Isabel, in this hour adaptation by Joseph Ruscoll, a free lance writer. Alexander Semmler is responsible for the music, Robert J. Landry for production.
Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' will be presented in 'Studio One,' KNX at 6:30. Director Fletcher Markle will portray Heatheliff, Miriam Wolfe, Cathy and Anne Burr, Isabel, in this hour adaptation by Joseph Ruscoll, a free lance writer. Alexander Semmler is responsible for the music, Robert J. Landry for production.
Veteran screen actor James Gleason stars as a patriotic Irish tailor on CBS's 'Skippy Hollywood Theater' [...] 'Mulligan the Mighty' is an original story by Janet and Joseph Ruscoll.