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12 Facts About Frederick Knott

1.

Frederick Major Paull Knott was an English playwright and screenwriter known for complex crime-related plots.

2.

Frederick Knott wrote the Broadway mystery Write Me a Murder.

3.

Frederick Knott has a son named Tony Knott who attended Princeton Day School in the 1970s.

4.

Frederick Knott became interested in theatre after watching performances of Gilbert and Sullivan works held by the Hankow Operatic Society.

5.

In 1934, Frederick Knott went up to Downing College, Cambridge, to read law.

6.

Frederick Knott graduated in 1938 with a third-class degree in law, but the outbreak of the Second World War prevented his competing at Wimbledon.

7.

Frederick Knott served in the British Army Artillery as a signals instructor from 1939 to 1946, rising to the rank of major, and eventually moved to the United States.

8.

Frederick Knott met Ann Hillary in 1952 and married her in 1953; they lived in New York for many years.

9.

Frederick Knott wrote the screenplay for the 1954 Hollywood movie which Hitchcock filmed for Warner Brothers in 3D, starring Ray Milland and Grace Kelly, with Anthony Dawson and John Williams reprising their characters from the New York stage production, which had won Williams a Tony Award for his role as Inspector Hubbard.

10.

In 1960, Frederick Knott wrote the stage thriller Write Me a Murder, produced at the Belasco Theatre in New York in October 1961.

11.

Frederick Knott stopped writing plays, choosing to live comfortably on the income from his earlier works.

12.

Frederick Knott died in New York City in December 2002.