Francis M. Cockrell

Not to be confused with the similarly named Confederate general who became a U.S. Senator from Missouri during Reconstruction, Francis Cockrell had a long career writing for film and television, with credits spanning over four decades. He came to Hollywood in the early 1930s. His first job was a co-screenwriting credit on the young-love drama "The Age of Consent." Cockrell worked steadily throughout the 1930s and '40s, largely on somewhat forgettable B movies. Two of these films, a mistaken-identity comedy with former silent film star Harold Lloyd called "Professor Beware," and the back-from-the-dead thriller "Dark Waters," were co-written with his wife, future prolific television writer Marion B. Cockrell. Like many screenwriters of his generation, Cockrell moved into television in the mid-1950s when it became clear that the new technology was no mere passing fad; after 1956, all his work was for the small screen. He became best known for his work on the anthology "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," for which he wrote 18 episodes between 1955 and '59; he directed two of them as well, the only non-writing credits of his entire career. Though Cockrell did not have that lengthy an association with any other television show, he worked steadily through the 1960s on such hit shows as the campy comic book spinoff "Batman." His final work was the 1973 TV movie "Ordeal," a revenge story about a businessman stranded in the desert by his unfaithful wife and her lover.