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Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich (December 4, 1903—September 25, 1968) was an American novelist and short story writer. His biographer, Francis Nevins Jr., rated Woolrich the fourth best crime writer of his day, behind only Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner and Raymond Chandler.

Woolrich's parents separated when he was young. He lived for a time in Mexico with his father, a civil engineer, before returning to New York City to live with his mother Claire.

He attended Columbia University, but left without graduating in 1926, upon the publication of his first novel, Cover Charge, a Jazz Age work inspired by the work of F Scott Fitzgerald. He soon turned to pulp and detective fiction, often published under the pseudonyms George Hopley and William Irish. For example, he published his 1942 story "It Had to be Murder", the basis of the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock movie Rear Window, under the name Irish. François Truffaut filmed Woolrich's The Bride Wore Black and Waltz Into Darkness in 1968 and 1969, respectively, the latter as Mississippi Mermaid.

In 1930, while living in Los Angeles and working as a writer in the film industry, Woolrich married Violet Virginia Blackton (1910-1965), daughter of silent film producer J. Stuart Blackton. They separated after 3 months and the marriage was annulled in 1933. In his youth, Woolrich was a promiscuous homosexual. He left his ex-wife a locked suitcase containing a diary detailing his sexual adventures.^[1]

Woolrich spent the next 35 years living in the same seedy Harlem, New York residential hotel as his mother, often moving in and out of her apartment. He never allowed her to read any of his work.

Following his mother's death in 1957, Woolrich moved in and out of various hotels in New York. Alcoholism and an amputated leg (caused by an infection from a too-tight shoe which went untreated) left him a recluse, although he did socialize on occasion with young admirers such as writer Ron Goulart. He did not attend the premiere of Truffaut's film of his novel The Bride Wore Black in 1968, even though it was held in New York City. He died weighing 89 pounds. He is interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.

Woolrich bequeathed his estate of about US$850,000 to Columbia University, to endow scholarships in his mother's memory for journalism students.

Woolrich's novels written beween 1940 to 1948 are considered prime Woolrich. During this time, he definitively became an author of novel-length crime fiction which stand apart from his first six works, written under the influence of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Woolrich died leaving fragments of an unfinished novel called The Loser. Most fragments have been published separately, but were recently collected in Tonight, Somewhere in New York.

• Four O'Clock (2006 film) (story "Three O'Clock")
• Original Sin (2001 film) (novel "Waltz Into Darkness")
• Cloak & Dagger (1984 film) (story "The Boy Who Cried Murder")
• I Married a Shadow (1983 film) (story "I Married a Dead Man")
• Union City (1980 film) (short story "The Corpse Next Door")
• Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972 film) (novel Rendezvous in Black)
• The Bride Wore Black directed by François Truffaut (1968)
• Mississippi Mermaid (based on Waltz Into Darkness) directed by Truffaut (1969)
• Nightmare (1956) (novel)
• Rear Window (1954) (story "It Had to Be Murder") directed by Alfred Hitchcock
• No Man of Her Own (1950) (story "I Married a Dead Man")
• The Window (1949) (story "The Boy Who Cried Murder")
• Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948) (novel)
• I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes (1948) (novel)
• The Return of the Whistler (1948) (story)
• Fear in the Night (1948) (story "Nightmare") (as William Irish)
• The Guilty (1947) (story "He Looked Like Murder")
• Fall Guy (1947) (story "Cocaine")
• The Chase (1946 film) (novel The Black Path of Fear)
• Black Angel (1946 film) (novel)
• Deadline at Dawn (novel) (as William Irish)
• The Mark of the Whistler (1944) (story)
• Phantom Lady (1944) (novel) (as William Irish)
• The Leopard Man (1943) (novel Black Alibi)
• Street of Chance (1942) (novel The Black Curtain)

• The pseudonym William Irish may be an oblique reference to Samuel William Henry Ireland, a notorious forger of "original" Shakespeare manuscripts.^{[citation needed]}
• Ownership of the copyright in Woolrich's original story "It Had to Be Murder" (1942) and its use as the basis for the movie Rear Window (1954) was eventually litigated before the United States Supreme Court in Stewart v. Abend, 495 U.S. 207 (1990).^{[citation needed]}

1. ^ Krinsky, Charles (2003), "Woolrich, Cornell", glbtq.com, <http://www.glbtq.com/literature/woolrich_c.html>. Retrieved on 2007-08-20
2. ^ Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers, 158. 

• Nevins, Francis M. Jr. (1988), First You Dream, Then You Die, Mysterious Press.

• Cornell Woolrich at the Internet Movie Database
• Suspense: After Dinner Story
• Suspense: Momentum (Murder Always Gathers Momentum)
• Suspense: Post Mortem
• Suspense: Three O'Clock
• Tribute to Woolrich website