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William Bowers

William Bowers

Writing

Biography

William Bowers (Las Cruces, 1916 - Woodland Hills, California, 1987) was a reporter in Long Beach, California before becoming a screenwriter and specializing in writing comedy westerns and also turned out several thrillers. His first credited screenplay was My Favorite Spy in 1942. His career noticeably picked up after his Oscar nomination for the gritty Gregory Peck Western The Gunfighter in 1950, leading to such assignments as the remake of My Man Godfrey in 1957 and The Sheepman in 1958 (a second Oscar nomination). Bowers produced the last film that he wrote, the superior Western parody Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969). He also had a bit part as an actor in The Godfather Part II (1974).

Known For

The Godfather Part II
8.6

In the continuing saga of the Corleone crime family, a young Vito Corleone grows up in Sicily and in 1910s New York. In the 1950s, Michael Corleone attempts to expand the family business into Las Vegas, Hollywood and Cuba.

The Godfather Part II

1974
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6.8

Four Star Playhouse is an American television anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956, sponsored in its first bi-weekly season by The Singer Company; Bristol-Myers became an alternate sponsor when it became a weekly series in the fall of 1953. The original premise was that Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, David Niven, and Dick Powell would take turns starring in episodes. However, several other performers took the lead from time to time, including Ronald Colman and Joan Fontaine. Blake Edwards was among the writers and directors who contributed to the series. Edwards created the recurring character of illegal gambling house operator Willie Dante for Dick Powell to play on this series. The character was later revamped and spun off in his own series starring Howard Duff, then-husband of Lupino. The pilot for Meet McGraw, starring Frank Lovejoy, aired here, as did another episode in which Lovejoy recreated his role of Chicago newspaper reporter Randy Stone, from the radio drama Nightbeat.

Four Star Playhouse

1952
Starsky & Hutch
7.3

Streetwise Detective David Starsky partners up with a more intellectual partner, Kenneth 'Hutch' Hutchinson, to protect citizens and patrol the streets of Bay City.

Starsky & Hutch

1975
General Electric Theater
6.8

General Electric Theater is an American anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan that was broadcast on CBS radio and television. The series was sponsored by General Electric's Department of Public Relations.

General Electric Theater

1953
Night and Day
6.0

When his first stage show fails, songwriter Cole Porter goes off to fight in WWI until, injured, he lands in a hospital. He impresses nurse Linda Lee with his creativity, but their budding romance must wait as Cole heads home. Back in New York, he mounts a series of popular shows, and when his work brings him back to Europe, he eventually marries Linda. But success doesn't spare him from marital complications or bad news about a beloved relative.

Night and Day

1946
Criss Cross
7.1

An armored-car guard must join a robbery after being caught with his ex-wife by her gangster husband.

Criss Cross

1949
The Gunfighter
7.4

The fastest gun in the West tries to escape his reputation.

The Gunfighter

1950
Support Your Local Sheriff!
7.0

In the old west, a man becomes a Sheriff just for the pay, figuring he can decamp if things get tough.

Support Your Local Sheriff!

1969
Assignment: Paris
5.9

Paris-based New York Herald Tribune reporter Jimmy Race is sent by his boss behind the Iron Curtain in Budapest to investigate a meeting involving the Hungarian ambassador.

Assignment: Paris

1952
Alias Jesse James
6.0

Insurance salesman Milford Farnsworth sells a man a life policy only to discover that the man in question is the outlaw Jesse James. Milford is sent to buy back the policy, but is robbed by Jesse. And when Jesse learns that Milford's boss is on the way out with more cash, he plans to rob him too and have Milford get killed in the robbery while dressed as Jesse, and collect on the policy.

Alias Jesse James

1959
My Man Godfrey
6.5

The eccentric Bullock household again need a new butler. Daughter Irene encounters bedraggled Godfrey Godfrey at the docks and, fancying him and noticing his obviously good manners, gets him the job. He proves a great success, but keeps his past to himself. When an old flame turns up Irene's sister Cordelia starts making waves.

My Man Godfrey

1957
Tight Spot
6.5

A former model, serving time in prison, becomes a key witness in a trial against a notorious gangster. She is put under protective watch by the District Attorney in a posh hotel, but the crime kingpin makes attempts to get to her.

Tight Spot

1955
The Mob
6.7

An undercover officer tracks waterfront corruption from California to New Orleans and back.

The Mob

1951
The Sheepman
6.9

A stranger in a Western cattle-town behaves with remarkable self-assurance, establishing himself as a man to be reckoned with. The reason appears with his stock: a herd of sheep, which he intends to graze on the range. The horrified inhabitants decide to run him out at all costs.

The Sheepman

1958
Kate Bliss and the Ticker Tape Kid
7.0

A turn-of-the-century investigator named Kate Bliss goes to the wide-open spaces of the wild west to capture a gang of outlaws led by a charming "Robin Hood of the plains," leading a band of dispossessed ranchers against a stuffy English land baron who has cheated them out of their property.

Kate Bliss and the Ticker Tape Kid

1978
Larceny
5.9

Rick Mason is the no-good lowdown rat who tries to capitalize on postwar patriotism and grief. He finagles a war widow into giving up her savings for a nonexistent memorial. When Mason falls in love with the widow he has pangs of conscience, but he reckons without his con-artist boss, who tends to bolster his arguments with muscle and bullets.

Larceny

1948
Convicted
6.2

A prison warden fights to prove one of his inmates was wrongly convicted.

Convicted

1950
Pitfall
6.9

An insurance man wishing for a more exciting life becomes wrapped up in the affairs of an imprisoned embezzler, his model girlfriend, and a violent private investigator.

Pitfall

1948
The Web
7.1

A brash young lawyer takes a short-term, high-paying job as bodyguard for a slick business exec being threatened by a former partner, and quickly realizes he may be in over his head.

The Web

1947
The Gal Who Took the West
6.0

In order to gain passage to the West, a woman poses as an opera singer, and causes a feud between two cousins.

The Gal Who Took the West

1949