Henry Denker obit

Henry Denker, Author in Many Genres, Dies at 99

 

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Henry Denker, prolific playwright and novelist, dies at 99

Henry Denker, a prolific novelist and playwright who may be best known for writing a long-running radio dramatization of the life of Jesus, “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” died May 15 at his home in New York City. He was 99. The New York Times reported that he had lung cancer.

Mr. Denker practiced law before giving it up to write radio scripts in 1the 1930s. Throughout his long career, which included more than 30 novels, Mr. Denker addressed such powerful themes as justice, religion and treason — though his critics said he sometimes demonstrated more earnestness than finesse.

In a review of the 1963 play, “A Case of Libel,” about a war correspondent who sues a gossip columnist, a Time magazine critic wrote: “Playwright Denker ringingly declares for a responsible free press and due process of law, which is about as audacious as sponsoring the Ten Commandments.”

Religious ideas figured heavily in many of Mr. Denker’s works, including a series of 1950s television dramas set in biblical times. From 1947 to ’56, he was the writer, director and producer of “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” for which he won a Peabody Award and many other honors during its 10-year run as a radio drama.

He noted in a 1948 New York Times essay that he called on an ecumenical panel of members of the clergy to review each episode.

“No script was broadcast till it had been approved by all of them,” Mr. Denker wrote. “This has kept the program out of the realm of controversy . . . It has proved that there is far more in common among all religions than any mere observance of the ritual differences would indicate.”

Writer Fulton Oursler borrowed the title of “The Greatest Story Ever Told” for a 1949 book about the life of Jesus, which became the basis for director George Stevens’s 1965 film of the same name.

In 1982, Mr. Denker told The Washington Post that he gave up the practice of law because he found it “too dull.” Nonetheless, he returned to the courtroom again and again in his novels, plays and scripts.

His 1956 court-martial drama (written with Ralph Berkey) about a U.S. prisoner of war in Korea suspected of treason, “Time Limit!,” was made into a film one year later, directed by Karl Malden with Richard Widmark in the starring role.

Comedian Milton Berle made a rare foray into a drama in Mr. Denker’s 1958 TV play “Material Witness” about a man who witnesses a murder. In 1975, Mr. Denker wrote “Judgment: The Court Martial of Lt. William Calley,” a television drama about the legal aftermath of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

He explored the life of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, for a 1958 television drama, “The Wound Within,” and for a 1961 Broadway play, “A Far Country.”

In the play, Mr. Denker’s depictions of Freud’s therapeutic sessions with a young female patient aroused grumblings from Freud’s descendants, but New York Times critic Howard Taubman wrote, “Mr. Denker has captured the dramatic core of an unforgettable experience in human revelation. He has done so because he has distilled the essence of a touching human story.”

Henry Denker was born Nov. 25, 1912, in New York. His father was a fur trader.

The younger Mr. Denker briefly studied to become a rabbi before graduating from New York Law School in 1934.

Mr. Denker gave up his law practice after three years and turned to writing for radio. At the dawn of the television age in 1939, he wrote for one of the first TV drama series, “False Witness.”

Mr. Denker followed a rigid schedule, rising at 5 a.m. seven days a week to write. He became immensely successful, with homes in Manhattan, Connecticut and California.

His wife of 62 years, Edith Heckman Denker, died in 2005. No other information about survivors could be learned.

Mr. Denker often recycled his work from one genre to another. His 1982 novel “Outrage,” about a man who seeks to avenge the rape and murder of his daughter, was produced that same year at the Kennedy Center as a courtroom drama. Washington Post theater critic David Richards found the play tedious, if well-intentioned.

“You can be perfectly sympathetic to the playwright’s arguments, applaud his cause, endorse his cries for action and still find his play to be a fraudulent bill of goods,” he wrote. “Making a case in the theater is not necessarily the same thing as making drama.”

In 1979, Mr. Denker published a novel and play, “Horowitz and Mrs. Washington,” about an elderly Jewish man’s experiences with his African American nurse. Mr. Denker later sued Alfred Uhry, the author of “Driving Miss Daisy” — which won the Pulitzer Prize and four Academy Awards — for plagiarism.

The suit was dismissed in 1992 by federal judge Michael B. Mukasey — who later became U.S. attorney general — who found the works “markedly dissimilar.”

 

Writer

Lékari

TV Movie

novel "The Physicians"

1988

 

American Playhouse (1980)

American Playhouse

7.3

TV Series

play

1986

1 episode

 

Outrage! (1986)

Outrage!

6.7

TV Movie

teleplay bybased on the novel by

1986

 

Love Leads the Way: A True Story (1984)

Love Leads the Way: A True Story

7.6

TV Movie

teleplay bystory by

1984

 

Un grand avocat (1984)

Un grand avocat

TV Movie

play

1984

 

A Case of Libel (1983)

A Case of Libel

8.0

TV Movie

play

1983

 

A Time for Miracles (1980)

A Time for Miracles

7.3

TV Movie

Writer

1980

 

Curd Jürgens and Mijou Kovacs in Berggasse 19 (1979)

Berggasse 19

TV Movie

Writer

1979

 

Harrison Ford, Richard Basehart, and Tony Musante in Judgment: The Court Martial of Lieutenant William Calley (1975)

Judgment: The Court Martial of Lieutenant William Calley

5.8

TV Movie

written by

1975

 

Een ver land

TV Movie

play

1971

 

The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever (1970)

The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever

6.0

TV Movie

Writer

1970

 

Neither Are We Enemies (1970)

Neither Are We Enemies

8.7

TV Movie

play

1970

 

Melvyn Douglas in The Choice (1969)

The Choice

TV Movie

Writer

1969

 

Le fil rouge (1968)

Le fil rouge

TV Movie

play

1968

 

A Case of Libel

7.2

TV Movie

playscreenplay

1968

 

Estudio 1 (1965)

Estudio 1

7.8

TV Series

play

1967

1 episode

 

Verbotenes Land

TV Movie

play

1967

 

Een ver land

TV Movie

play "A far country"

1966

 

Charlton Heston, John Wayne, Van Heflin, Max von Sydow, David McCallum, and Dorothy McGuire in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)

The Greatest Story Ever Told

6.6

source writings

1965

 

Richard Chamberlain in Twilight of Honor (1963)

Twilight of Honor

6.3

screenplay

1963

 

The Hook (1963)

The Hook

6.5

screen play

1963

 

Give Us Barabbas! (1961)

Give Us Barabbas!

8.2

TV Movie

writer

1961

 

Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (1958)

Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse

8.0

TV Series

writer

1959

1 episode

 

The Power of the Resurrection (1958)

The Power of the Resurrection

5.8

written by

1958

 

Kraft Theatre (1947)

The United States Steel Hour

8.0

TV Series

teleplay

1958

1 episode

 

Frontiers of Faith (1952)

Frontiers of Faith

6.6

TV Series

Writer

1958

1 episode

 

Kraft Theatre (1947)

Kraft Theatre

7.9

TV Series

teleplay

1958

1 episode

 

Richard Widmark in Time Limit (1957)

Time Limit

7.3

screenplayplay

1957

 

Theatre Night (1957)

Theatre Night

8.1

TV Series

play

1957

1 episode

 

Lux Video Theatre (1950)

Lux Video Theatre

7.6

TV Series

adaptation

1952

2 episodes

 

Cosmopolitan Theatre

6.6

TV Series

Writer

1951

1 episode

 

Producer

The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever (1970)

The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever

6.0

TV Movie

executive producer

1970

 

The Power of the Resurrection (1958)

The Power of the Resurrection

5.8

producer

1958

 

Director

Theatre Night (1957)

Theatre Night

8.1

TV Series

theatre director

1957

1 episode

 

Self

The Needs of Kim Stanley

Self

Filming

 

Jacques Martin in Thé dansant (1980)

Thé dansant

TV Series

Self

1981

1 episode

 

Working in the Theatre (1976)

Working in the Theatre

5.9

TV Series

Self

1979

1 episode