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Herman Raucher, a best-selling author and the Academy Award nominated screenwriter of “Summer of ’42,” died Dec. 28 of natural causes at Stamford Hospital in Stamford, Conn. He was 95.

Raucher got his start in the industry working in live television. He wrote one hour dramas for anthology series including “Studio One,” “Good Year Playhouse” and “The Alcoa Hour.” In his screenwriting career, he wrote the scripts for two films starring Anthony Newley, “Sweet November” (1968) and “Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?” (1969), which Newley also directed.

Raucher was inspired by Bobbie Gentry’s popular song “Ode to Billie Joe” to write the screenplay for Max Baer Jr.’s 1976 romance film of the same name starring Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor. Raucher also co-wrote the script for the 1977 film “The Other Side of Midnight.”

Raucher is remembered for penning the script for the popular coming-of-age film “Summer of ’42,...

Herman Raucher, whose Oscar-nominated Summer of ’42 screenplay became one of Hollywood’s best-loved coming-of-age tales, has died of natural causes at Stamford Hospital in Stamford, Ct. He was 95.

His December 28 death was announced by daughter Jenny Raucher, who was by his side when he passed.

Subsequently adapted by Raucher into an international best-selling novel, 1971’s Summer of ’42 was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Original Screenplay. It told the nostalgic and bittersweet story of teenager Hermie — played by Gary Grimes and based on Raucher himself — who, during a summertime vacation on Nantucket Island, becomes infatuated with a beautiful (and soon grieving) older woman (Jennifer O’Neill) whose husband has gone off to fight in World War II.

The film, directed by Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird), was a critical success and a major hit for Warner Bros. Michel Legrand’s score won an Oscar and quickly became...

Herman Raucher, the best-selling author and screenwriter who earned an Oscar nomination for the coming-of-age classic Summer of ’42 and wrote the script for the thought-provoking Watermelon Man, has died. He was 95.

Raucher died Thursday of natural causes at Stamford Hospital in Stamford, Connecticut, his daughter Jenny Raucher told The Hollywood Reporter.

Raucher, who started out in live television, penned the screenplays for two Anthony Newley-starring films: Sweet November (1968), directed by Robert Ellis Miller and also featuring Sandy Dennis, and Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969), featuring Joan Collins.

He also was given inspiration from Bobbie Gentry’s 1967 hit song to write the screenplay to Ode to Billy Joe (1976), a love story that starred Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor and was helmed by Max Baer Jr.

With the Robert Mulligan-directed Summer of ’42 (1971) in postproduction, someone came up with the idea of Raucher writing a...

Jerome Coopersmith, who received a Tony nomination for writing a 1965 Sherlock Holmes musical and penned more than two dozen episodes of the original Hawaii Five-o during the series’ first nine seasons, has died. He was 97.

Coopersmith died peacefully Friday in Rochester, New York, his family announced.

After earning a Purple Heart for his service during World War II, Coopersmith broke into television writing for quiz shows and historical programs. In the early 1950s, he and Horton Foote worked on the kids-focused Gabby Hayes Show and Johnny Jupiter, and the future Pulitzer Prize and Oscar winner behind To Kill a Mockingbird would become his mentor.

Coopersmith wrote 30 regular installments and two feature-length episodes of CBS’ Hawaii Five-o from 1968-76. Among those was the notable 1975 eighth-season installment Retire in Sunny Hawaii … Forever, which featured Helen Hayes in an Emmy-nominated guest-starring stint as the aunt of her real-life son, James MacArthur.

He then...

Larry Hagman, the actor best known as the ruthless oilman J.R. Ewing on TV’s Dallas, died Friday afternoon. He was 81.

Members of his family said Hagman died of complications stemming from his recent battle with cancer. “Larry was back in his beloved Dallas, re-enacting the iconic role he loved most,” the family said in a statement. “Larry’s family and close friends had joined him in Dallas for the Thanksgiving holiday. When he passed, he was surrounded by loved ones. It was a peaceful passing, just as he had wished for. The family requests privacy at this time.

For years, The Stingiest Man In Town has existed as a kind of lost treasure of the earliest days of televised Christmas specials. Originally broadcast as an episode of The Alcoa Hour in 1956, the special has lived on as a very good original cast recording and an inferior Rankin-Bass animated special, but the original, live broadcast—recorded on kinescope—was thought lost forever until it recently turned up in the collection of a former Alcoa executive. The production was actually the second of two live musical versions of A Christmas Carol produced for television in the ’50s (a 1954 ...

One of the quintessential American filmmakers of the 20th century, Sidney Lumet passed away earlier this morning at his home in Manhattan, at age 86. His stepdaughter, Leslie Gimbel, attributed his death to complications arising from lymphoma (cancer of the lymph nodes).

Born in Philadelphia on June 25th, 1924, to actor Baruch Lumet and dancer Eugenia Wemus Lumet, Sidney Lumet actually began performing on Broadway as a kid during the 1930s and made his film acting debut at age 15 in … One Third of a Nation…

Lumet would go on to become a successful television director during the 1950s, helming multiple episodes of shows like Danger, You Are There, The Best of Broadway, and The Alcoa Hour. He made his feature-length film directorial debut in 1957 with Twelve Angry Men, a multiple Oscar-nominee that the American Film Institute (AFI) ranks as ...

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