Anthony Boucher - Radio

Radio

Boucher also scripted for radio and was involved in many other activities, as described by William F. Nolan in his essay, "Who Was Anthony Boucher?":

The 1940s proved to be a very busy and productive decade for Boucher. In 1945 he launched into a spectacular three-year radio career, plotting more than 100 episodes for The Adventures of Ellery Queen, while also providing plots for the bulk of the Sherlock Holmes radio dramas. By the summer of 1946 he had created his own mystery series for the airwaves, The Casebook of Gregory Hood. ("I was turning out three scripts each week for as many shows," he stated. "It was a mix of hard work and great fun.")

Tony left dramatic radio in 1948, "mainly because I was putting in a lot of hours working with J. Francis McComas in creating what soon became The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. We got it off the ground in 1949 and saw it take hold solidly by 1950. This was a major creative challenge and although I was involved in a lot of other projects, I stayed with F&SF into 1958."

Indeed, throughout his years with the magazine, Boucher was certainly involved in "a lot of other projects." Among them:

• Supplying the SF and crime markets with new fiction.

• Teaching an informal writing class from his home in Berkeley.

• Continuing his Sunday mystery columns for the New York Times Book Review.

• Functioning as chief critic for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

• Reviewing SF and fantasy (as H. H. Holmes) for the New York Herald Tribune.

• Editing True Crime Detective.

• Supervising the Mercury Mystery Line and (later) the Dell Great Mystery Library.

• Hosting Golden Voices, his series of historical opera recordings for Pacifica Radio.

• Serving (in 1951) as president of Mystery Writers of America.

In addition to all of this, Tony was a devoted poker player, a political activist, a rabid sport fan (football, basketball, track, gymnastics and rugby), an active "Sherlockian" in the Baker Street Irregulars and a spirited chef.

With respect to his scripting of the Sherlock Holmes radio dramas, Nigel Bruce, who played Dr. Watson, said that Boucher "had a sound knowledge of Conan Doyle and a great affection for the two characters of Holmes and Watson."

Anthony Boucher died of lung cancer on April 29, 1968 at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland.

The annual Anthony Boucher Memorial World Mystery Convention was named in his honor.