Alfred Bester

Alfred M. Bester
Biographical information
Born:	December 18, 1913
Died:	September 30, 1987
Nationality:	American
Occupation:	Writer
Website:	N/A

Alfred Bester was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books.

Early writing career

Science Fiction - Pulp magazines

His writing career began when he won a competition and had his first story, "The Broken Axiom", published in the science fiction magazine "Thrilling Wonder Stories" (April 1939). The editor of the magazine, Mort Weisinger, later (March 1941) start working for National Perodicals (DC).

Then followed stories like: "No Help Wanted" ("Thrilling Wonder Stories", December 1939), "Guinea Pig, Ph. D" ("Startling Stories", March 1940), "Voyage to Nowhere" ("Thrilling Wonder Stories", July 1940), "Treachery on Camoia" ("South Sea Stories", October 1940), "The Mad Molecule" ("Thrilling Wonder Stories", January 1941), "Slaves of the Life-Ray" ("Thrilling Wonder Stories", February 1941), "The Pet Nebula" ("Astonishing Stories", February 1941), "The Probable Man" ("Astounding Science-Fiction", July 1941), "Adam and no Eve" ("Astounding Science-Fiction", September 1941), "The Biped, Reegan" ("Super Science Stories", November 1941), "Life for Sale" ("Amazing Stories", January 1942), "The Push of a Finger" ("Astounding Science-Fiction", May 1942), "The Unseen Blushers" ("Astonishing Stories", June 1942) and "Hell is Forever" ("Unknown Worlds", August 1942).

Stage - librettos

In the fall of 1942, Bester copyrighted the text of two librettos he had written: "La traviata" and "Fair of Sorotchintz".

The Fair of Sorochinsk

"The Fair at Sorochyntsi" is a comic opera in three acts by Modest Mussorgsky, based on a short story by Nikolai Gogol.

Bester wrote the lyrics for the version produced for the New Opera Company which premiered at the Broadway Theatre, New York, on November 3, 1942. It was staged as "The Fair at Sorochinsk" with the cast: Marina Koshetz (later Mary Henderson), Winifred Heidt, Michael Barlett, Carleton Gauld, Donald Dame, Paul King and Gordon Dilworth. It was a double-bill with "The Opera Cloak" by Walter Damrosch. From November 10 "The Fair at Sorochinsk" was a double-bill with the "Ballett Imperial".

La traviata

"La traviata" is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave based on Alexandre Dumas the younger's novel and play "La Dame aux Camélias".

"La traviata" was performed a few times in New York in late 1942, but whether these were based on Bester's paraphrase is unknown.

Comic Books

In an interview from late 1971, Alfred Bester briefly talks about his years as a comic book writer:

When the comic book explosion burst, these two editors were hired by the Donenfelt Group (1941). There was a desperate need for writers to provide the scenarios for the artists so Weisinger and Schiff brought him along with them. He hadn’t the faintest idea of how to write comics scripts but there was one brilliant and talented writer named Bill Finger who took him in hand one rainy Saturday afternoon and gave him an incisive and lucid lesson in the craft. It was the ultimate in generosity. 
He wrote comics for some three or four years with increasing expertise and success. These were the years of his apprenticeship. ...

In an interview from 1986, interviewer Lou Mougin had read Bester's autobiographical piece "Hell's Cartographers", and asked a little more about his time as a comic book writer:

LOU MOUGIN: You got into comic books sometime between 1942 and 1947? 
ALFRED BESTER: Yes, around then. By a fluke, I started writing science fiction for Standard Magazines. Two of the editors I had were Jack Schiff and Mort Weisinger, and also Murray Boltinoff.

LOU: I was just checking through this Jerry Bails’ INDEX. I see your entry on CAPTAIN MARVEL for Fawcett in this list of writers. It has you circa 1942 to 1945. I guess that could be any story in that period? 
ALFRED: Yeah, sure.
LOU: So you have any recollection of any specific stories?
ALFRED: No.
LOU: We established that you did do GREEN LANTERN. Somebody told me you wrote the Green Lantern oath. But you said flatly that you did not - you know, "In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night..."
ALFRED: I did not like the oath. I thought it was pretty corny. Pretty tired. And when finally Shelly Mayer gave me complete control, I dumped it. I dumped Doiby Dickles.

LOU: What was your favorite comic strip?
ALFRED: My favorite really was GENIUS JONES.
LOU: GENIUS JONES - you created that one, right?
ALFRED: Yeah, actually, I had to love it.

GCD mentions Bester as the writer of stories with: "Starman", "Genius Jones", "Hourman and Thorndyke", "Captain Marvel" and "Green Lantern".

The two "Captain Marvel" stories at GCD was in Fawcett's "Captain Marvel Adventures" series and in the shops February and December 1942.

The "Starman" (October and November 1941; September, October and November, 1942), "Genious Jones" (August 1942 - April 1943; June/July 1943; December/January 1943/1944; February/March 1944 and Juni/Juli 1944) and "Hourman and Thorndyke" (December 1942; January and February 1944) stories were printed in DC's "Adventure Comics" series.

As for "Green Lantern", GCD lists the stories printed in the "All-American Comics", "Comic Cavalcade" and "Green Lantern" series with the first story in the fall of 1944 (September), and the last one in June 1947.

• 
  Starman
• 
  Genius Jones
• 
  Hourman and Thorndyke
• 
  Captain Marvel
• 
  Green Lantern

According to Julius Schwartz, Bester's agent from 1941, Bester stayed with "Green Lantern" for a year after Schwartz started working for DC in February 1944. Henry Kuttner then took over as the writer on "Green Lantern".

Writer of radio shows

In the interview from late 1971, Alfred Bester briefly talks about when he left the comic field and started working on radio shows:

He was married by then and his wife was a radio actress. One day she told him that the radio show, Nick Carter, was looking for scripts. He took one of his best comic book stories, translated it into a radio script, and it was accepted. Then his wife told him that a new show, Charlie Chan, was having script problems. He did the same thing. By the end of the year he was a regular contributor to Nick Carter and the exclusive writer on Chan, and branching out to The Shadow, Treasury Agent, the Jimmy Melton Show and others. His comic book days were over.

In the interview from 1986, interviewer Lou Mougin asked a little more about how he started his career as a radio scripter:

LOU: I was going to ask you about the radio scripting. How did you get into it?
ALFRED: My wife was working as a radio actress when I was writing squinkas - comics. There was a new show that came on as a summer replacement called CHARLIE CHAN. She worked the show. She came to me and said, "The producer of the show" - Chick Vincent, his name was — "is desperate for scripts. All they have is onescript which sold the show for a summer replacement — that's all they've got." They had thirteen weeks on their hands, and didn't know what the hell to do. So I said, "All right, I'll take a crack at it. Bring me a script so I know how to type 'em, how long, what format… " She did. And I stole a couple of what I thought were my best comic-book stories, and turned them into scripts. And Chick Vincent bought 'em both! They called me in: I ended up as the writer on the show — the whole show! As a matter of fact, it was continued by NBC as a regular show. I ended up as the director and producer and writer on it. I had the whole schmear.

Bester copyrighted two "Nick Carter" episodes, "The Horoscope Murders" and "The Drums of Death", on March 14 and 31, 1944.

The "Charlie Chan" radio show was scheduled on June 22, 1944, for a 13-week run. The show was produced by Chick Vincent and the actors were: Ed Begley, Leon Janney, Craig McDonald, Ted Di Corsia, Walter Vaughn, Eleanor Audley and Lou White (organist). The writer was initially James Erthein. The radio show was on the air for three seasons: July 6 to September 28, 1944; October 5, 1944 to April 5, 1945 and June 18 to November 30, 1945. When the play "Friskie" by Bester was to be staged on Broadway in fall 1945, he was mentioned as: the scripter of the "Chan" radio program.

Ghosting for Lee Falk

Alfred Bester - 1961

The oldest known mention of Alfred Bester in connection with "Mandrake", "the Phantom" and "Superman" is from 1961, in an advertisement in the magazine "Advertising Age".

The first thing that's a bit odd about this ad is that Bester was not credited as the writer of the comic stories he wrote. So how could readers remember him from these stories?

Secondly, "Superman" is mentioned, but Bester has never subsequently been mentioned as the author of stories featuring "Superman". But Bester wrote some stories featuring "Starman", another hero who also flew around and fought villains. Bester also wrote stories about the "Green Lantern", a masked hero with an oat and a mysterious ring who fought villains. "The Phantom", also masked with an oat and a mysterious ring, did the same.

And in addition, his wife, Rosalind Rolly Bester, was a radio actress who is said to have played the role of Lois Lane in the Superman radio show. According to Tim Hanley Rolly Bester initially played Lois Lane, first appearing in the seventh episode: "The Atomic Beam Machine" (aired February 26, 1940). She was then kidnapped by some villains and had very few lines until se was rescued by Superman a few episodes later. Lois had no role in the next episodes and when she returned she was voiced by Helen Choate.

Early 70’s Lee Falk was to write a series of The Phantom novels for Avon Publications in the U.S. As later remarked by Ron Goulart:

 Lee Falk didn’t keep up with things and was looking for a writer who could adapt old strip continuities into novels. During WWII Alfred Bester had ghosted Falk’s strip and without being aware that Bester had become a successful writer, Lee Falk first asked him to write a few novels.

Later on Bester confirmed that he had worked on both The Phantom and Mandrake during WWII with the anecdote:

 I had one funny experience during that time that I was writing comics. I also ghosted Mandrake and The Phantom for Lee Falk. Lee and I got together and he was telling me how one of the Sunday pages from Mandrake sold at auction in Paris for three hundred dollars. I told him, when we moved into our brownstone at 68th Street, the old Stephen Vincent Benét house we managed to get, I papered one entire wall of my workshop with the silver prints from Green Lantern. And he said, "My God, they're worth a fortune today, do you still have them?" I said "No, when we moved out I just left'em behind; I just put'em up with carpet tacks." I had no idea then that there would be this tremendous nostalgia vogue for the old comics. Had I but known ..

A somewhat strange coincidence is that in the Starman story "The Time-Machine Crime!" (Adventure Comics 080, November 1942) the villains use a time machine to kidnap William Shakespeare. They trick him into helping with the plan to rob the wealthy audience during a performance at the Cambridge Summer Theatre. A theatre co-sponsored by John Huntington and Lee Falk at that time.

The ghost period

Neither Lee Falk nor Alfred Bester told more detailed about the period, or which stories, Bester ghosted Lee Falk.

Reading the non-dated anecdote by Bester he said (to Lee Falk) he had moved out of the Stephen Vincent Benét house, where he had a wall of silver prints of Green Lantern. Stephen Vincent Benét died on March 13, 1943. And according to GCD Bester’s first Green Lantern story was in the shops fall 1943. The first part of the anecdote then must have taken place after fall 1943 and before March 7, 1944, when Lee Falk was enlisted as private at Fort Devens. The last part of the anecdote can not be from the 40s since it was unlikely that there would be this tremendous nostalgia vogue for the old comics at that time. The statement fits better in the situation around 1972 or later.

Two periods can be listed with possible ghosted stories:

• Lee Falk as Chief of Radio of the Foreign-Language Division of the OWI: About spring 1942 to about September 1943.
• Lee Falk in the army: March 1944 to about July 1945.

Where the last period fits best in terms of this article.

The ghost stories

Neither the dailies or Sundays with "Mandrake" or "The Phantom" shows some clear literary characteristics which may indicate that they are written by Bester, using the Burrow's Delta (a metod used in stylometry). One would think that the Sunday was more equal to writing stories for comic book, but even in these stories nobody yet have found any clues indicating Bester as the writer.

There is also another possible explanation for stories ghosted by Bester. A situation similar to the Avon novels, adapting newspaper strips into novels. Like the "Better Little Book" series with "Mandrake" and "The Phantom", or the book "The Son of the Phantom" by Dale Robertson.

Or thirty years after the events occurred, Bester mixed up newspaper comic writer Lee Falk and his characters with the characters Bester had worked on for DC in the years 1942 to 1944.

There are a situation similar to the Avon novels, adapting comic scripts into radio show episodes:

One day she told him that the radio show, Nick Carter, was looking for scripts. He took one of his best comic book stories, translated it into a radio script, and it was accepted. Then his wife told him that a new show, Charlie Chan, was having script problems. He did the same thing.

And I stole a couple of what I thought were my best comic-book stories, and turned them into scripts. And Chick Vincent bought 'em both!

At this time, radio shows were recorded on transcription discs that could be played on a turntable and broadcast on the air by radio stations. Thanks to collectors, some of these radio shows have survived and some can be found on various sites on the internet.

For the two "Nick Carter" episodes Bester copyrighted in March 1944: "The Horoscope Murders; or: The Mystery of the Avenging Astrologer" and "The Drums of Death; or: Mystery of the White Witch Doctor", only the last exist today. The plot of "The Drums of Death" is about a woman is not feeling well so she has her nephew make an appointment for her with Dr. Congo. When she gets there she learns that he is a witch doctor who threatens her life is she doesn't give him $10,000. And that is the same plot as in the Mandrake daily story from 1944: "Doctor Congo".

There are no episode list with titles and only a few "Charlie Chan" radio show episodes from the years 1944 - 1945 found at the internet. So it is not possible today to find "Charlie Chan" plots retaken from any of Bester's comic book stories.

With knowledge of one newspaper daily story written by Bester, one recognize the plotting and writing style also in a newspaper daily story with the Phantom, "The Crooner" from 1944.

See also

• Spotlight on Lee Falk - The WWII Years