Willis Hall was an English playwright and radio and television writer who drew on his working class Leeds roots in much of his material.His most famous creation was probably Billy Liar (1960), co-written with life-long friend and collaborator Keith Waterhouse, and based on the latter's novel. His rise to fame had come from his play about British soldiers in the Malayan jungle The Long and the Short and the Tall.He wrote more than a dozen children's books, including a series about a family called the Hollins who meet a vegetarian vampire called Count Alucard. He also wrote a book, Henry Hollins and the Dinosaur. His membership in the Magic Circle was a source of inspiration for these books. He also wrote 40 radio and television plays, as well as contributing to many TV series, including The Return of the Antelope and Minder.He wrote a musical about the scarecrow Worzel Gummidge, and others based on the books Treasure Island and The Wind in the Willows. He also wrote Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure.
Had a keen interest in performing magic, member of several magic circles. He also served as president of St Albans football club in the 1960s and 1970s.
Prolific British playwright and screenwriter, often in collaboration with his childhood friend Keith Waterhouse. He was the son of a fitter in an engineering plant. His first job was in journalism after dropping out of school at the age of fourteen. He then joined the trawler crews sailing from Hull, and became a professional soldier. He took up writing plays while stationed in Malaya. He returned to Britain seven years later, working for BBC radio as a playwright.
He rarely spoke of his tempestuous and short-lasting marriage to Jill Bennett, but, after her suicide and near the end of his own life, he revealed that she had been in the frequent habit of telephoning him from home to say she had just taken an overdose of sleeping pills. This, of course, would cause him to abandon whatever he was doing and rush back to her - whereupon he would find her laughing mockingly at his naivete and drinking champagne. He claimed that she was so neurotic and self-centered that he could never be sure of her, and had left her rather than put up with her behavior. By a terrible irony, she actually did commit suicide by an overdose some twenty-five years after their divorce.
In his later years, he was very friendly with playwright John Osborne, the second husband of his ex-wife Jill Bennett. Both men claimed that they would, whenever they heard a rumor that Bennett was thinking of re-marrying, band together to dissuade her new intended husband from taking this rash step.
