Moving from writing for magazines to writing stories and teleplays for television is a complex undertaking requiring a combination of writing and technical skills often outside the range of one person. Cockrell’s initial involvement in television began not with the writing of teleplays but with having his stories adapted by other writers. “The Power Devil,” for example, co-authored with Herbert Dalmas, first appeared in The American Magazine (December 1949). In 1950, William Kendall Clark adapted the story into a teleplay for Philco Television Playhouse (November 5, 1950).
Other Cockrell stories became teleplays for television shows including episodes of The Loretta Young Show (March 19, 1954) and The Damon Runyon Theatre (January 21, 1956).
Cockrell’s first published short story was co-authored with his older brother, Francis M. Cockrell, in 1932 (Blue Book). In 1956, the Cockrell’s again teamed up to contribute teleplays for two episodes in the first year of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (“A Bullet for Baldwin,” January 1, 1956, and “You Got to Have Luck,” January 15, 1956).
The Cockrell Brothers also contributed two episodes for The Web (“No Escape,” July 28, 1957, and “Dead Silence,” September 22, 1957) and two episodes for Man Without a Gun (“Silent Town,” January 15, 1958, and “Man Missing,” June 12, 1958). A final collaboration was an episode for The Walter Winchell File (“David and Goliath,” January 31, 1959).
Eustace Cockrell contributed stories and teleplays for a variety of other shows including Target, Cheyenne, Jefferson Drum, This Man Dawson, Two Faces West and Naked City.
He was also under contract with Warner Bros. to help edit some of this studio’s western television programs – Sugarfoot, Maverick and Have Gun Will Travel.
While Cockrell had matured so that he could successfully write teleplays for drama programs with themes of suspense (Alfred Hitchcock Presents) or crime investigations (This Man Dawson), he was most at home writing for the television westerns.
Here, the author could draw upon his early experiences in the midwestern town of Warrensburg, Mo, combining the small-town setting with his overall theme of lifting the lowly and humbling the arrogant – a good guy/bad guy combination that was at the heart of the successful early western television shows.
In “The Drought,” (Two Faces West, January 9, 1961) for example, a show that features twin brothers, one who carries a gun and one who is a physician, Cockrell presents a con man in the form of a “rainmaker.” Gliyyas Hatfield ends up bilking the desperate farmers of their life savings only to have second thoughts and return their money. At this point, thunder is heard and the initial rain drops begin to fall. There is dancing in the street.
Corny perhaps, but hopeful, and Cockrell at his purest.
(See MOVIES/TELEVISION SCREENPLAYS for a complete list of Eustace Cockell’s television contributions.)