Whitney Ellsworth

Biography Ellsworth was born in Brooklyn, New York. He took a cartooning course at the YMCA in Brooklyn and worked on the syndicated features Dumb Dora (for Newspaper Feature Service), Embarrassing Moments (providing plots, pencils and inks for both) and Just Kids (assisting with pencils and inks, for the King Features Syndicate) between 1927 and 1929. In the early 1930s, he began working on another syndicated feature, Tillie the Toiler, for King, as well as writing gag cartoons, articles and features for the Newark Star-Eagle/Ledger newspaper (1931–1934), also finding time to work on a number of pulp magazine stories throughout the 1930s.

Comics In late 1934, he became associated with Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's fledgling company National Allied Publications, later known as DC Comics.

Pulps Ellsworth also wrote short stories for the pulp titles Black Bat, G-Man (including the Dan Fowler novel "Spotlight on Murder" in September 1942 ) and The Phantom Detective (for which title he certainly ghosted two pulps – #76 Murder at the World's Fair and #77 The Forty Thieves in June and July 1939), among others.

Newspaper strip

Ellsworth was also the first writer on the Batman & Robin newspaper strip, which appeared first on Sundays and later on weekdays. Featuring artwork primarily from Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Giella, Ellsworth wrote the strip between 1966 and 1970, whereupon E. Nelson Bridwell took over for a couple of years.

TV and film In addition to his extensive comics work, Ellsworth "was DC's movie studio contact" on a number of projects, keeping his "editorial director" title, but working mainly on "DC properties in Hollywood" between c. 1951–1959.

The Adventures of Superman Most notably, Ellsworth was a consultant on the serial sequel Atom Man vs. Superman (1950) (also with Kirk Alyn), and co-wrote the feature film Superman and the Mole Men (1951) before becoming a producer, episode writer, and script editor on the subsequent live-action TV series The Adventures of Superman (both starring George Reeves as the Man of Steel).

Ellsworth is also said by Bails to have helped co-write The Godfather.

References in popular culture The actor/film historian Jim Beaver, preparing a biography of Adventures of Superman star George Reeves, played a character called "Ellsworth" in the TV series Deadwood (2004). At his request, producer David Milch okayed the character being given the first name "Whitney" in homage to Reeves's Adventures of Superman producer. The actor Eric Johnson played the character Whitney Fordman in the Superman TV series Smallville (2001–2011). The name Whitney was a clear homage to Ellsworth, the producer (after Robert Maxwell) of the original Superman TV series.