Fred Coe

Frederick Hayden Hughs Coe (December 23, 1914 – April 29, 1979) was an American director and producer, of theatre, television, and film. He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play a total of six times, winning in 1960 for the original production of The Miracle Worker.

To television audiences, he was known for his contributions to dramatic anthology programs during the Golden Age of Television. was born on December 23, 1914, in Alligator, Mississippi. His father, F. H. H. Coe, was an attorney; his mother, Annette Harrell Coe, was a nurse. Coe grew up in Buckhorn, Kentucky, and Nashville, Tennessee. He attended Peabody Demonstration School in Nashville and Peabody College, before studying at the Yale Drama School. Coe made his mark in the early years of network television when Lights Out moved from radio to TV on July 3, 1946. Variety reviewed: Credit for the show's all-around excellence belongs jointly to scripter Wyllis Cooper and producer Fred Coe. Cooper was the last writer of the radio version with an eight-week series on the NBC net last summer. (Show returns for eight weeks Sat. (6) as replacement for Judy Canova). He followed Arch Oboler at the task and has made the switch from radio to tele without a single letdown in the program's eerie quality. Coe, whose light on NBC television has been partly hidden in the past by Ed Sobol and Ernie Colling, both of whom won ATS awards this last year, has come into his own with this show and should now rank right at the top of the heap. Story, titled First Person Singular, concerned a psychopathic killer whose wife's constant nagging, extreme sloppiness, etc., led him to strangle her in their apartment on one of those blistering summer evenings. Killer was never seen, with the camera following the action and taking in just what the eyes of the murderer would see. Thoughts in the killer's subconscious, meanwhile, told what might go on in the mind of such a person as he contemplates his crime, is convicted in court and then hanged. Coe achieved some admirable effects with the camera, drawing the viewer both into the killer's mind and into the action. Use of a spiral montage effect bridged the gap between scenes very well and the integration of film to point up the killer's dream of a cool, placid existence and to heighten the shock effect as the hangman ended his life was excellent. Technical director Bill States was on the beam with the controls in following Coe's direction. Coe became executive producer of Mr. Peepers in 1952 and kept that job until 1955. The program won a Peabody Award in 1953. He won an Emmy Award in 1954 as Best Producer of a Live Series for his work on Producer's Showcase. He is buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs, New York.

Legacy His biography, The Man in the Shadows: Fred Coe and the Golden Age of Television by Jon Krampner, was published by Rutgers University Press in 1997. The UCLA Film and Television Archive has kinescopes of many Coe productions and has made some digital transfers. The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research also has kinescopes.

Filmography The Left Handed Gun (1958) (producer) The Miracle Worker (1962) (producer) A Thousand Clowns (1965) (director, producer) Me, Natalie (1969) (director)