Will Cook (writer)

William Everett Cook (1921 – July 1964), was a western writer who used the pen names Will Cook, James Keene, Wade Everett and Frank Peace. Called "a master western storyteller,"[1] Cook published dozens of short stories and 50 novels before his death at age 42. A number of his stories and novels were turned into Hollywood westerns, including the 1961 John Ford film Two Rode Together.

William Everett Cook
Born1921
DiedJuly 1964
Pen nameWill Cook,
Frank Peace,
James Keene,
Wade Everett
OccupationNovelist
Period1950–64
GenreWestern fiction

Life

Born in Richmond, Indiana,[2] Cook ran away from home at age 16 and joined the U.S. Army cavalry[2] before serving as a pilot in the Pacific during World War II. During the war he was severely wounded in the leg but later returned to active duty.[2]

After the war Cook worked as a salvage worker, judo instructor, a bush pilot in Alaska, and as a deputy sheriff in California.[2][3] Cook died of a heart attack in 1964[3] while building a schooner in which he and his wife Thea hoped to sail around the world.[2]

Writing career

Cook started writing westerns in 1951 and published 100 short stories and 50 novels[3] before dying at the age of 42.[4]

In 1959, Cook used the penname Wade Everett for a series of paperbacks released by Ballantine Books, with these novels being reprinted numerous times over the following decades. Among these was The Last Scout, published in 1960 and considered one of his best novels.[3] The novel is about an unrepentant hell raiser who comes to Deadwood to live with his daughter's family.[2] Other notable books of his include The Wind River Kid (Fawcett, 1958), where the main character of The Last Scout is now a drunk who gets thrown into the job of sheriff, and The Wranglers (Fawcett, 1960), about an older horse-breaker and his partner who travel to monument country in Southern Utah while dealing with personal issues.[2]

Publishers Weekly called Cook "a master western storyteller.[1] His fiction frequently featured the use of "recurring characters to link otherwise standalone stories," as shown in his collection of novellas The Devil's Roundup, which Booklist called "One of the best posthumous western collections to be offered in many years.[4] Most of his books deal with traditional western themes of reformed outlaws, range wars and fights with Native Americans, but some also focused on romance.[3]

After Cook's death a number of posthumous books by him were released. In addition, his Everett byline had become valuable enough that Ballantine Books turned it into a house name for novels written by other authors.[2] Among these was 1968's The Whiskey Traders, which was released under the Everett byline but written by Giles A. Lutz.[3][2]

Many of Cook's short stories including "A Gunman Came to Town" were published in The Saturday Evening Post.[5]

Cook's archives are held in the University of Oregon Libraries.[6]

Hollywood adaptations

Cook's 1959 novel Comanche Captives inspired the 1961 John Ford film Two Rode Together,[7][8] with the novel being re-released that year as a movie tie-in by Bantam Books in the United States and as a hardcover in the United Kingdom.

In addition, Cook's stories and novels were also adapted into a number of other Hollywood westerns including episodes of the TV shows Cheyenne, Bronco, and Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre along with the film Quincannon, Frontier Scout and the Spaghetti Western Gli uomini dal passo pesante.[9][10][11]

Bibliography

Single novels
  • Easy Money (1955)
  • The Brass Brigade (1956)
  • Bandit's Trail (1974)

Omnibus collection
  • The Outlaw's Revenge: And Other Bible Mystery Stories for Boys and Girls (1950)

Single novels
  • Frontier Feud (1954)
  • Prairie Guns (1954)
  • Fury at Painted Rock (1955)
  • Sabrina Kane (1955)
  • Trumpets to the West (1956)
  • Apache Ambush (1958)
  • Badman's Holiday (1958)
  • Elizabeth, by Name aka The Crossing (1958)
  • Guns of North Texas (1958)
  • The Wind River Kid (1958)
  • Comanche Captives (1959, with an excerpt published as a short story in the Saturday Evening Post[14])
  • The Outcasts (1959)
  • Killer behind a Badge (1960)
  • Outcast of Cripple Creek (1960)
  • The Wranglers (1960)
  • The Peacemakers (1961)
  • Two Rode Together (1961)
  • The Breakthrough (1963)
  • The Tough Texan (1963)
  • Last Command (1964)
  • Ambush at Antlers Spring (1967)
  • The Apache fighter (1967)
  • The Drifter (1969)
  • The Rain Tree (1996)
  • The Last Scout (1997)
  • The Devil's Roundup (2002)

A Saga of Texas
  1. Until Day Breaks (1999)
  2. Until Shadows Fall (2000)
  3. Until Darkness Disappears (2001)

See also

References
  1. "Review of Rain Tree by Will Cook," Publishers Weekly, 10/02/1996.
  2. "Entry for Cook, Will(iam Everett)," Encyclopedia of Frontier and Western Fiction edited by Jon Tuska and Vicki Piekarski, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1983, page 52 to 54.
  3. "Entry on William Everett Cook" by R. E. Briney, Twentieth-Century Western Writers edited by Geoff Sadler, St. James Press, 1992, pages 140 to 142.
  4. "Review of The Devil's Roundup" by Wes Lukowsky, Booklist, Sept. 15, 2002.
  5. Great Westerns from the Saturday Evening Post edited by Julie Eisenhower, Curtis Publishing Company, 1976, page 50.
  6. William (Will) Everett Cook papers, 1952-1964, Archives West Orbis Cascade Alliance, accessed 9/24/2022.
  7. Race in American Film: Voices and Visions that Shaped a Nation edited by Daniel Bernardi and Michael Green, ABC-CLIO, 2017, page 876.
  8. The John Ford Encyclopedia by Sue Matheson, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019, page 346.
  9. Will Cook entry, IMDb, accessed 9/24/2022.
  10. Feature Films, 1950-1959: A United States Filmography by Alan G. Fetrow, McFarland, 1999, page 337.
  11. Annuario del cinema italiano & audiovisivi, Centro di studi cultura, promozione e difusione del cinema, 1975, page 75.
  12. Frank Peace in Fantastic Fiction, retrieved 30 October 2008
  13. Will Cook in Fantastic Fiction, retrieved 30 October 2008
  14. "Comanche Captives" by Will Cook, Saturday Evening Post. 4/25/1959, Vol. 231 Issue 43, p48-114. 5p.
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