Willis Edward Hall
1929 - 2005
Biography
Willis Hall joined the professional army when he was 17, which took him to the Far East for several years. During this time, he began writing, both as a scriptwriter for the Chinese Schools Department of Radio Malaya and also as a reporter for the Singapore Standard. Back in the UK, he had his first major success when “The Long And The Short And The Tall” won the Evening Standard Best Play of the Year Award, 1958. Renewing a childhood friendship with Keith Waterhouse, they adapted Waterhouse's novel, “Billy Liar” for the theatre. They subsequently collaborated on many plays and musicals, including “Celebration”, “Say Who You Are”, “The Card”, and the adaptation of two Eduardo De Filippo plays: “Saturday, Sunday, Monday”, for the National Theatre and “Filumena”, both of which won Play of the Year Awards.
Films co-written with Keith Waterhouse include “Billy Liar”, “Whistle Down The Wind” and “A Kind Of Loving”. Television series written with Keith include “Budgie” and the popular children's series based upon the books about Worzel Gummidge.
As a solo writer, Hall wrote extensively for the theatre and television. He was a prolific children's author. He scripted “The Reluctant Dragon”, which won the Bafta Best Animation Film Award, 1998. His musicals, for the theatre, include “The Wind In The Willows” and “Treasure Island” (in collaboration with Denis King), and “The Water Babies” (in collaboration with John Cooper). His series of novels about Count Alucard, the vegetarian vampire (the most recent, “Vampire Island”, was published in 1999) have proved consistently popular for many years and they have been translated into most European languages.
Hall had a close relationship with The Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, where his adaptations of classical novels have included: “Jane Eyre”; “The Three Musketeers” and “Mansfield Park” the last named being revived in 1996, at the Chichester Festival Theatre, prior to a national tour. He also worked on a new “Peter Pan” musical, in collaboration with George Stiles and Anthony Drewe and commissioned by Imagination Ltd, in the UK, and which premiered in December 1999 at the New Theatre in Copenhagen.
Willis Hall had a great love of magic and although not a public performer, entertained his friends and colleagues with some of his favourite tricks. He bought an apartment in Malta in the 1980s and he visited reguarly, attending religiously the Malta Ring meetings whenever here, as a full member. He was also a member of The British Ring of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, The Magic Circle and the Society of American Magicians. He was a regular contributor to “The Yorkshire Evening Post” and published articles in the British Ring magazine “The Budget”, and the Maltese Ring magazine “Is-Saħħar”.
Hall was married four times. His first three marriages to Kathleen May Cortens (m. 1954), actress Jill Bennett (m. 1962), and Dorothy Kingsmill-Lunn (m. 1966), all ended in divorce. On 2 November 1973, Hall married the 28-year-old dancer and actress Valerie Shute, who survived him, along with his four sons. Following a long fight with esophageal cancer, Hall died at his home in Ghyll Mews, Ilkley in West Yorkshire on 7 March 2005. His son, James, a TV writer in his own right and his wife, Val, still visit the apartment in Malta regularly.
