Ted Willis, Baron Willis

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Edward "Ted" Henry Willis, Baron Willis (* 13. January 1914 or 1918 in Tottenham , Middlesex ; † 22. December 1992 in Chislehurst , Kent ) was a British author of novels , stage works and screenplays , three times for the British Film Academy Award was nominated and in 1964 when Life Peer became a member of the House of Lords for the Labor Party under the Life Peerages Act 1958 .

Life

Early political engagement and screenwriter

Willis has already participated at an early stage politically and was first in 1937 as a candidate of the political left chairman of the youth organization of the Labor Party ( Labor League of Youth ) before 1941 general secretary of the Young Communist League was, the youth organization of the Communist Party of Great Britain . In this capacity he gave numerous speeches during the Second World War on the establishment of a Second Front to support the Red Army in the fight against the German Reich .

Willis' political activity led to his being classified as an enemy of the state by the police forces of National Socialist Germany: in the spring of 1940 the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who would be killed in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht, special SS commandos following the occupation forces were to be identified and arrested with special priority.

After the end of the war, Willis began working in the British film industry and made his debut as a screenwriter with the screenplay for the crime film Tanz in den Abgrund (1948, Good Time Girl) by David MacDonald with Jean Kent , Dennis Price and Herbert Lom . He wrote to 1987 the templates and scripts for more than sixty films and television series and wrote next to it also works for the stage as the 1958 at the New London Theater premiered piece Hot Summer Night .

Willis was from 1959 to 1964 the first chairman of the newly established writers union Writers' Guild of Great Britain , which both the union umbrella organization Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds joined.

As a writer, he was nominated three times for the British Film Academy Award for Best Screenplay: In 1958 for the feature film Die Frau im Morgenrock (Woman in a Dressing Gown, 1957) by J. Lee Thompson with Yvonne Mitchell , Anthony Quayle and Sylvia Syms , 1960 for the film drama Straße ohne Zukunft (No Trees in the Street, 1959) by J. Lee Thompson with Sylvia Syms, Herbert Lom and Melvyn Hayes, and most recently in 1962 for the film drama Schwarze Fackel (Flame in the Streets, 1961) by Roy Ward Baker with John Mills , Sylvia Syms and Brenda de Banzie in the lead roles.

Member of the House of Lords and German film productions

For his services, Ted Willis was raised to the nobility by a letters patent dated January 21, 1964 as a life peer with the title Baron Willis , of Chislehurst in the County of Kent, and was thus a member of the House of Lords until his death . During his membership in the House of Lords, he joined the Labor Party faction .

Between 1967 and 1992, Baron Willis, who served as President of the International Writers' Guild from 1967 to 1992 , was director of the film production company World Wide Pictures and from 1983 to 1992 of Vitalcall Ltd.

Willis became known to German television audiences primarily as the author and source of ideas for the scripts for the television series Black Beauty (Black Beauty - The Autobiography of a Horse, 1972 to 1973) and the series Ein Heim für Tiere , which was first broadcast on ZDF in 1985 , but also through other television films based on his plays and ideas , in which actors such as Inge Meysel , Eddie Arent , Volker Brandt and Günter Strack participated and which were directed by directors such as Franz Josef Gottlieb and Georg Tressler .

Publications

  • Youth appeals to labor , 1937
  • Fighting youth of Russia , 1942
  • The lady purrs , 1950
  • The world is in this place , 1950
  • Doctor in the house , 1957
  • Hot summer night , 1959
  • Woman in a dressing-gown , 1959
  • Whatever happened to Tom Mix? , 1970
  • Death may surprise us , 1974
  • The left-handed sleeper , 1975
  • Man-eater , 1976
  • Hunters Walk , 1976
  • The Churchill Commando , 1977
  • The Buckingham Palace connection , 1978
  • The lions of Judah , 1979
  • The Naked Sun , 1980
  • The most beautiful girl in the world , 1982
  • Spring at the Winged Horse , 1983
  • Death in the Square - Part 2, 1988
  • Problem for Mother Christmas , 1988
  • The Green Leaves of Summer , 1989
  • The Bells of Autumn , 1991
  • Evening all , 1991
  • The Plume of Feathers , 1993
  • Death May Surprise Us , 1994
in German language
  • The woman in the dressing gown. A piece in two acts , (Original title: Woman in a dressing gown), Reinbek near Hamburg, Rowohlt Verlag , 1962
  • Hot summer night. Play in three acts , (Original title: Hot summer night), translation by Dorothea Gotfurt . Frankfurt am Main, S. Fischer Verlag , 1962
  • Stakkato , (Original title: Death may surprise us ), Tübingen, Wunderlich Verlag, 1975
  • Spy on Ice , (Original title: The left-handed sleeper), Tübingen, Wunderlich Verlag, 1976
  • Killer cats , (Original title: Man-Eater), Tübingen, Wunderlich Verlag, 1978
  • In the matter of Romanov. Roman , (Original title: The Buckingham Palace connection), Tübingen, Wunderlich Verlag, 1979, new edition under the title The Ring of the Last Tsar , Reinbek near Hamburg, Rowohlt Verlag, 1984
  • Abendsterne , (Original title: Stardust), Reinbek near Hamburg, Rowohlt-Theater-Verlag, 1984
  • A home for animals. Three volumes , Morsbach / Sieg, Tholenaar Verlag, 1985 to 1987
  • Uprising of the old , (Original title: The battle of Lavender Lodge: Old flames), Reinbek near Hamburg, Rowohlt-Theater-Verlag, 1986

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ted Willis at de.findagrave.com, accessed October 22, 2019
  2. ^ Entry on Ted Willis on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London) .
personal data
SURNAME Willis, Ted, Baron Willis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Willis, Edward Henry, Baron Willis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer, screenwriter, trade unionist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 13, 1914 or January 13, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Tottenham , Middlesex
DATE OF DEATH 22nd December 1992
Place of death Chislehurst , Kent