Edmund L. Hartmann

Edmund L. Hartmann, a screenwriter who wrote many of the zany comedies of the 1940s and ’50s, died on Nov. 28. Cause of death was not released. He was 92.
After graduating from Washington University in Missouri, Hartmann wrote songs for The Ziegfeld Follies. He moved to Hollywood in 1934, and spent several years writing melodramas and mysteries starring Sherlock Holmes.
When Hartmann took a job penning Abbot and Costello comedies with Universal in the 1940s, he found his writing niche. For the next 15 years, he worked on comedic screenplays for Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis and the Three Stooges. Some of Bob Hope’s most famous films — “Paleface” “The Lemon Drop Kid” and “Here Come the Girls” — were written by Hartmann.
He turned his attention to television in 1954, where he wrote and/or produced several shows, including “My Three Sons” and “A Family Affair.” Hartmann also served as the head of the Writers Guild of America, which presented him with The Morgan Cox Award in 1985.
For a career that spanned more than 60 years, Hartmann received the Golden Chili Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Santa Fe Film Critics Circle. He was also the focus of the biography, “Bound and Gagged in Hollywood,” by Donald W. McCaffrey.