Jerome Coopersmith (August 11, 1925 – July 21, 2023) was an American dramatist known for television, theater, and his work as a professor of screenplay writing. Working in the television industry since 1947, Coopersmith authored more than 100 television scripts for anthology dramas, episodic series and television movies and specials. His television work included Johnny Jupiter (1953–1954), Armstrong Circle Theater (1955–1963), Hawaii Five-O (1967–1976), and Streets of San Francisco (1973), and the holiday classics 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974) and An American Christmas Carol (1979). Coopersmith's theatrical plays span Broadway, off-Broadway, and regional productions. His Broadway musical, Baker Street (1965), based on the stories of Sherlock Holmes, earned him a Tony Nomination as Author of Best Musical. He was a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Mystery Writers of America, and was a member and past officer of the Writers Guild of America, East. On November 12, 2019, at age 94, Coopersmith was honored with the highest distinction of Chevalier, or Knight, in the National Order of the French Legion of Honor in recognition of his service to France in World War II.
Early years, family and education Jerome Coopersmith was born in New York in 1925. At age 16, he landed his first job as an office boy for the Shubert Theatrical Company in New York City. Coopersmith's education was interrupted by two years of service in World War II. While part of the 94th Infantry Division of the US Army, he saw combat at The Battle of the Bulge and was awarded a Purple Heart after being shot in the chest. He also was awarded a Combat Infantryman Badge; a Bronze Star Medal; a European Theater of Operations Medal with three battle stars; and the highest distinction in the National Order of the French Legion of Honor.
In 1945, 20-year-old Coopersmith returned to college and earned his degree from New York University.
Television career Jerome Coopersmith landed his first television job in 1947 with pioneer TV producer Martin Stone, who had a number of shows on the air including the popular children's show Howdy Doody. Coopersmith's first assignment was with the quiz show entitled Americana which challenged a panel of high school students to answer questions about American history based on brief dramatizations performed by actors. Coopersmith wrote the short vignettes of American history which aired on the show.
This led to Stone's production of The Gabby Hayes Show, a series of full half-hour dramas of events in American history. The stories were co-written by Jerome Coopersmith and the more experienced playwright Horton Foote. Foote was a mentor to Coopersmith, and together they wrote more than 50 episodes which aired on NBC. Many successful actors began their television careers on the show, including Ernest Borgnine, Rod Steiger, and Leslie Nielsen.
In 1952, Martin Stone wanted to try his hand at producing a comedy, and so he and Coopersmith came up with the idea of a series called Johnny Jupiter about a television studio janitor, played by Vaughn Taylor, who succeeds in contacting the planet Jupiter. His attempt to explain the strange ways of Earth to the Jupiterians, portrayed by hand puppets, provided the satirical content of the series. In reviewing the show, Jack Gould of The New York Times wrote, “If Mr. Coopersmith can sustain the brilliant pace of the opening show, he obviously is going to move quickly to the head of the class among TV's satirists.” The 13-week series was produced on the independent station, DuMont Television Network, and was extended for another 26 weeks as a sitcom on ABC.
By 1954, the one-hour anthology drama series, such as The Philco Television Playhouse and The United States Steel Hour had become extremely popular. David Susskind, wishing to enter that realm, took over as executive producer of Armstrong Circle Theater, originally a half-hour dramatic show, and recruited Coopersmith to help him change the show's format. The series was reinvented as a one-hour docu-drama based on true stories and real events, and at Coopersmith's suggestion, each episode was narrated by a renowned newscaster to stress the reality of the series. Coopersmith's first episode, The Strange War Of Sergeant Krenzer, was the true story of United States Sergeant Werner Krenzer, an army sergeant in Korea who was given the job of rounding up homeless kids on the streets and placing them in shelters, but the kids didn't want to go. Coopersmith became a principal writer for the Armstrong Circle Theatre, penning 19 additional teleplays airing from 1955 to 1963 and providing him with some extraordinary experiences. For the episode "SSN 571 The Nautilus", Coopersmith took a 6-day underwater journey in America's first atomic submarine, the , for which his agents and lawyers required David Susskind to insure Coopersmith's life for one million dollars. The episode "I Was Accused" was based on the true experience of actor George Voskovec, who was kept interned at Ellis Island during the days of Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch hunt". For this teleplay, Coopersmith was presented with the 1956 Robert E. Sherwood Award by a committee that included Eleanor Roosevelt.
In 1964, Coopersmith wrote an episode for Decision: The Conflicts of Harry S. Truman, A documentary series based on the writings of Harry S. Truman during his U.S. presidency, produced by Ben Gradus for Screen Gems. Coopersmith met President Truman when he wrote the 25th episode, "I Am an American", reflecting on the attempted assassination of Truman in 1950. By 1965 the series was widely broadcast and was reaching about 70% of American households.
Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s Coopersmith wrote episodes for many popular television series including Justice, Appointment with Adventure, The Big Story, Decoy, Brenner, and Combat!, as well as anthology dramas for Goodyear Playhouse, The Alcoa Hour, Kraft Television Theater and Hallmark Hall of Fame.
By the mid-1960s the bulk of the TV industry had moved from New York to Hollywood. In 1967, Coopersmith was hired by producer Leonard Freeman to write a script for a new TV series Hawaii Five-O. That script, Samurai, became the 4th episode of hit show's first season. Hawaii Five-O became Coopersmith's focus for the next 8 years, during which he wrote 30 one-hour episodes and 2 feature-length movies for the show. One of Coopersmith's episodes, "Retire In Sunny Hawaii – Forever" featured Helen Hayes, mother of James MacArthur (Danno), in the leading guest role. Hayes received an Emmy Nomination for this performance. Another Coopersmith episode, "I'm A Family Crook... Don't Shoot!" was a comedy-crime drama guest starring Andy Griffith and Joyce Van Patten. "Nine Dragons", one of Coopersmith's feature-length episodes, was filmed in Hong Kong and continues to air as a full-length movie in foreign countries.
Coopersmith continued to write scripts for many television series throughout the 70's and 80's including Streets of San Francisco, Medical Center, The Andros Targets, Nurse, Spenser: For Hire and its spin-off A Man Called Hawk.
Coopersmith also wrote screenplays for TV movies and specials which aired on the major networks in the 1970s and 80s. His first feature film of this era, Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside, was originally planned as a series pilot, and was produced by Philip D'Antoni (The French Connection) in 1973. The movie starred Tony LoBianco and Hal Linden as cops thwarting a gang of diamond smugglers.
In 1973, Coopersmith wrote the screenplay for 'Twas The Night Before Christmas an animated adaptation of Clement Moore's classic poem "A Visit From Saint Nicholas". The Rankin/Bass production featured voices by Joel Grey, George Gobel, Tammy Grimes, and John McGiver. The special became an annual holiday classic, airing on CBS for 20 years from 1974 to 1994. In 1994 The Family Channel (now ABC Family) purchased the syndication rights. The special was also released commercially in most media formats.
Coopersmith celebrated the holiday theme with two additional works. Have I Got A Christmas For You was a 1-hour television special based on the true story of a Jewish congregation whose members filled the jobs of their Christian neighbors for one night, so they could be with their families on Christmas Eve. The holiday special, produced by Gilbert and Joseph Cates in 1977 and directed by Marc Daniels, starred Milton Berle, Steve Allen, Jayne Meadows, Herb Edelman, Jim Backus, and Adrienne Barbeau.
An American Christmas Carol, another holiday-inspired work, is a feature-length movie adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic transplanted to New England during the great depression. The movie, produced by Stanley Chase and Jon Slan, first aired in 1979 with Henry Winkler starring as Benedict Slade (the adaptation version of Scrooge), and David Wayne and Dorian Harewood co-starring. The movie continues to air annually, and was released commercially in all media formats.
Another of Coopersmith's TV movies was an adaption of the Mary Higgins Clark best-selling novel, The Cradle Will Fall, a murder-mystery about a doctor obsessed with creating a fountain-of-youth drug. The movie, which premiered on CBS in 1983, was produced by Joseph Cates and starred Lauren Hutton, Ben Murphy, and James Farentino. Appealing to the network's daytime audience, the story was set in the soap opera Guiding Light's fictional town of Springfield USA, home of Cedars Hospital, and featured six of the soap's key characters in supporting roles.
Theatrical career In the 1960s, Jerome Coopersmith sought to expand his work from television to the theatrical stage. His first effort was a biographical play entitled Eleanor about the early life of Eleanor Roosevelt when she worked as a volunteer teacher in a New York Settlement House. In 1967 the play was performed in Bridgewater, Massachusetts at Massachusetts State College, where it won the S. Elizabeth Pope Playwriting Award. In 1974, a concert version of the play was performed at Hunter College in New York, with Jane Alexander in the title role. Roosevelt's family and friends attended this performance. Years later, in 1984, the Smithsonian Institution selected Eleanor to be performed in Washington DC in conjunction with the Eleanor Roosevelt Centennial. The show ran in the National Portrait Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution, and was performed by the students of DC's Catholic University.
Coopersmith's next stage venture was Baker Street a musical based on the stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was produced on Broadway by Alexander H. Cohen, directed by Harold Prince, with a musical score by Marian Grudeff and Raymond Jessel. The show opened in 1965 at The Broadway Theatre, where it ran for nine months and then moved off-Broadway to the Martin Beck Theatre (now the Al Hirschfeld Theatre), for a total of 311 New York performances. The cast included Fritz Weaver, Peter Sallis, Martin Gabel, Inga Swenson, Virginia Vestoff, Teddy Green, and featured the Broadway debuts of Tommy Tune and Christopher Walken in small supporting roles. Bil Baird's Marionettes were also featured in an elaborate scene of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Parade. The show received three Tony Nominations in 1965 including Coopersmith's nomination in the category Best Author (Musical). Baker Street returned to New York City for an off-Broadway production at the York Theatre in 2001. In November 2016, Baker Street was produced by the 42nd Street Moon Theater in San Francisco. The show ran for three weeks, as part of their 2016 season.