{{Short description|American dramatist (1893–1941)}}
{{Infobox person |name = Wilson Collison | image = File:Wilson collison.jpg | image_size = | birth_date = {{birth date|1893|11|5}} | birth_place = Glouster, Ohio, United States | death_date = {{death date and age|1941|5|25|1893|11|5}} | death_place = Beverly Hills, California, U.S. | other_names = Clyde Wilson Collison | known_for = plays, novels | occupation = Novelist, playwright | spouse = Anzonetta Moore (1920–1941, his death) | yearsactive = 1924–1941 }}
'''Wilson Collison''' (November 5, 1893 – May 25, 1941)<ref>California Death Index</ref> was an American writer and playwright. He started with farces.
His play ''Red Dust'' (1928) was adapted twice for feature films: the first released in 1932 under the same title, and a 1953 version titled ''Mogambo''. Two novels also received second lives in film adaptations.
==Early years== Wilson Collison was the son of John B. Collison, a clerk in the Glouster, Ohio City Engineer's Office, and Mary E. Gardner.<ref>1900 US Federal Census</ref> Wilson Collison abandoned plans to become a scientist when he found he preferred writing.
Showing signs of early talent, he was nine when a Columbus, Ohio newspaper accepted one of his stories. His writing was largely self-developed, as he completed only one year of high school.<ref>"Wilson Collison, wrote farce hits". ''The New York Times''. May 26, 1941.</ref> In his early years, he worked as a printer, a stenographer, an advertising writer, and as a clerk in the wholesale and retail drug business.
==Actor== At 18 Collison became an actor with a repertory company that toured small towns in Michigan. He also was a vaudeville performer.<ref>"[https://www.nytimes.com/1919/02/09/archives/who-is-wilson-collison.html Who is Wilson Collison?]" ''The New York Times''. February 9, 1919</ref>
==Playwright and novelist== Collison's jump start as a playwright came in 1919, when he co-wrote ''Up in Mabel's Room'' and it became a Broadway hit. Collison was working as an $18-a-week clerk in a Columbus, Ohio drugstore when he collaborated on the play with the more experienced Otto Harbach of New York City. The older man was already known as a lyricist. The farce centered on a shy bridegroom's pursuit of an incriminating undergarment which in a single bold moment he had earlier presented to a young woman whom he had temporarily fancied.<ref>"''Up in Mabel's Room'': John Cumberland and Walter Jones Shine In Fairly Amusing Farce". ''The New York Times''. January 16, 1919</ref>
Collison also co-wrote two farces with successful playwright Avery Hopwood: ''The Girl in the Limousine'' (1919), about a man who is robbed and left in a woman's bedroom; and ''Getting Gertie's Garter'' (1921), about a lawyer who doesn't understand the difference between a bracelet and a garter. These had some success in New York.{{citation needed|date=June 2019}} (In 1920, Hopwood had four plays running on Broadway.)
A number of Collison's works had second lives as film adaptations in the 1930s, as the industry expanded with "talkies". His play ''Red Dust'' closed after eight performances in New York, and received withering reviews.
But it was adapted twice for films, which had more success. The 1932 film by the same name was set in Vietnam, then a French colony, and starred Clark Gable. Another film adaptation, titled ''Mogambo'', was made in 1953. Set and shot in colonial British East Africa and neighboring areas, it also starred Gable, plus Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly, and introduced British actor Donald Sinden.
The stage version was described this way: "Red Dust, a turgid play," was "a repetitious melodrama ... Another of those plays of the tropics, or anyway the near tropics, where passions are primitive and men wear their shirts open in the front," wrote ''The New York Times''.<ref>"''Red Dust'' a Turgid Play of the Tropics: A Repetitious Melodrama by Wilson Collison, Erstwhile Author of Farces". ''The New York Times''. January 3, 1928</ref>
Collison's novel ''Red-Haired Alibi'' (1932) was adapted as a feature-length film of the same name by Tower Productions. Directed by Christy Cabanne, it was the first feature-length film to include Shirley Temple in the credits.{{citation needed|date=June 2019}}
The Maisie series of motion pictures, with the first in 1939, was developed from Collison's novel ''Dark Dame''. MGM cast Ann Sothern as Maisie Ravier, a brash American working woman. Sothern played the same role in a half-hour weekly radio series.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Bawden|first1=James|title=Ann Sothern: Smartest Girl in Town|journal=Films of the Golden Age|date=Fall 2016|issue=86|pages=18–27}}</ref>
At the time the movie was released, the 1933 film ''Sing Sinner Sing'' was recognized as being loosely based on the 1932 Libby Holman-Zachary Smith Reynolds case.<ref>"''Sing, Sinner, Sing'': Moans, Groans, And Murder on a Gambling Ship," ''Newsweek'' (1933).</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Determeyer|first=Eddy|title=Rhythm Is Our Business: Jimmie Lunceford and the Harlem Express|publisher=University of Michigan Press|year=2008|page=65|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cGjlObYrRhsC|isbn=9780472033591}}</ref> and may have been adapted from one of Collison's works.{{cn|date=February 2026}}
==Works== ===Plays=== *1919 ''Up in Mabel's Room'' *1919 ''The Girl in the Limousine'' *1920 ''The Girl with the Carmine Lips'' *1921 ''Getting Gertie's Garter'' *1921 ''A Bachelor's Night'' *1922 ''Desert Sands'' *1923 ''Debris''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://exhibits.stanford.edu/copyrightrenewals/catalog/R70507|title=Debris (1923 play), Copyright renewal in 1950 by widow}}</ref> *1928 ''Red Dust''
===Novels=== *1929 ''Murder in the Brownstone House'' *1930 ''Diary of Death'' *1931 ''Blonde Baby'' *1931 ''Expensive Women'' *1931 ''The Woman in Purple Pajamas'' *1932 ''Farewell to Women''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11820/11820-8.txt |title=The Project Gutenberg eBook of U.S. Copyright Renewals|format=TXT|access-date=2023-10-11}}</ref> also called ''Dishonable Darling'' *1932 ''Red-haired Alibi'' *1932 ''Shy Cinderella'' *1933 ''Millstones'' *1933 ''One night with Nancy'' *1933 ''Sexational Eve'' *1934 ''Congo Landing'' *1935 ''Save a Lady'' *1935 ''The Second Mrs. Lynton'' *1936 ''Glittering Isle''
==Filmography== * ''The Girl in the Limousine'' (1924, based on ''The Girl in the Limousine'') <!--July 20, 1924--> * ''Up in Mabel's Room'' (1926, based on ''Up in Mabel's Room'') <!--June 26, 1926--> * ''Getting Gertie's Garter'' (1927, based on ''Getting Gertie's Garter'') <!--28 February 1927--> * ''Divorce Made Easy'' (1929) <!--July 6, 1929--> * ''Expensive Women'' (1931, based on ''Expensive Women'') <!--October 24, 1931--> * ''A Scarlet Week-End'' (1932, based on ''The Woman in Purple Pajamas'') * ''Three Wise Girls'' (1932, based on ''Blonde Baby'') <!--February 9, 1932--> * ''The Crusader'' (1932) <!--October 5, 1932--> * ''The Red-Haired Alibi'' (1932, based on ''Red-haired Alibi'')<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/RedHairedAlibi|title=Red Haired Alibi|year=1932}}</ref> <!--October 15, 1932--> * ''Red Dust'' (1932, based on ''Red Dust'') <!--October 22, 1932--> * ''Night of the Garter'' (UK, 1933, based on ''Getting Gertie's Garter'') <!--1933--> * ''Sing Sinner Sing'' (1933) <!--17 August 1933--> * ''Smart Girl'' (1935) <!--26 July 1935--> * ''Woman Wanted'' (1935) <!--August 2, 1935--> * ''There's Always a Woman'' (1938) <!--April 20, 1938--> ** ''There's That Woman Again'' (1938) <!--Sequel--> * ''The Mad Miss Manton'' (1938) <!--October 21, 1938--> * ''Maisie'' (1939) <!--June 22, 1939--> ** ''Congo Maisie'' (1940) ** ''Gold Rush Maisie'' (1940) ** ''Maisie Was a Lady'' (1941) ** ''Ringside Maisie'' (1941) ** ''Maisie Gets Her Man'' (1942) ** ''Swing Shift Maisie'' (1943) ** ''Maisie Goes to Reno'' (1944) ** ''Up Goes Maisie'' (1946) ** ''Undercover Maisie'' (1947) * ''Moon Over Burma'' (1940) <!--December 11, 1940--> * ''Up in Mabel's Room'' (1944, based on ''Up in Mabel's Room'') <!--April 7, 1944--> * ''Getting Gertie's Garter'' (1945, based on ''Getting Gertie's Garter'') <!--November 30, 1945--> * ''Mogambo'' (1953, based on ''Red Dust'') <!--October 9, 1953--> * ''Maisie'', unsold television pilot based on "Maisie" character; aired on television anthology series ''New Comedy Showcase'' (1960)
==Personal life== Collison married Anzonetta Moore, a playwright from Mason City, Iowa.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/marriage-clipping-oct-17-1942-2702956/|title=Anzonetta Collison married to Athletic Commissioner in West|year=1942}}</ref>
Collison died at home of a heart attack. He had no funeral, at his request, and his remains were cremated.<ref>"Death Takes Wilson Collison, Author of Popular Comedies". ''Los Angeles Times''. May 26, 1941. p. A1.</ref>
His wife remarried in 1942. Her next husband, Edwin Atherton died two years later.
==References== {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Collison, Wilson}} Category:1893 births Category:1941 deaths Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights Category:20th-century American male writers Category:20th-century American novelists Category:American male dramatists and playwrights Category:American male novelists