Scope and Content Note
The papers of Henry Denker (1912-2012) span the years 1929-2009, with the bulk of the material dating from 1940 to 2000. The papers are organized into three series: a small Subject File , a Writings File comprising the major part of the papers, and an Oversize consisting of a scenic design plan.
Denker was prolific during his nearly sixty-five years of professional work, writing for stage, radio, television, and film as well as publishing thirty-four novels. He occasionally took a role in producing and directing as well. His correspondence with producers, directors, actors, lawyers, and publishers reveals a wide range of activities related to the business of theater, film, and television production. Denker was skilled at adapting his work to other genres and did so frequently; a stage play would become a screenplay and then be worked into a novel. Denker began his adult life as a lawyer, and perhaps because of this, he did not hesitate to litigate. Legal papers accompany many of the titles in the Writings File, in particular the files for Greatest Story Ever Told, Horowitz and Mrs. Washington,Outrage!, and What Did We Do Wrong?.
The Subject File includes material that was not connected to a particular piece of writing. The series includes correspondence with family, friends, directors, producers, actors, literary agents, and publishers as well as organizational files, biographical material, speeches, fan mail, and miscellany. A large file on the economist Leo Cherne documents the long friendship of the two men, starting in high school in the Bronx. Denker and Cherne attended New York University Law School together and remained lifelong friends. Other prominent correspondents in the Subject File include the actor Alan Hewitt, television producer and writer Austin Kalish, film producer William Perlberg, writer, director and producer George Seaton, and screenwriter Stanley H. Silverman. Treated in the correspondence are scripts, casting, financial deals, and critiques of plays. Denker often shared his political opinions, opinions that can be detected in his creative writing (for an example, see his novel and play Judge Spencer Dissents). Through the mid-1960s, Denker identified with the Democratic Party, writing the script for a 1964 Johnson for President rally at Madison Square Garden. Denker was a Cold War anti-communist who became increasingly conservative in the 1970s. By the 1990s Denker often wrote conservative commentary in his personal correspondence frequently expressing disdain for Bill and Hillary Clinton.
The bulk of the collection is the Writings File , organized by the final title of each work. Some files contain only a proposal or outline of an idea that was never realized. Files for successfully produced or published projects include a variety of documents such as a series of drafts, correspondence, reviews, playbills and other printed material, legal files, research files, and financial records. Files also exist for work that was never produced or published, for example the lengthy file and multiple drafts of The Dirty Dozen; the studio eventually chose the screenplay of another writer. Denker's play Tea with Madame Bernhardt provides an example of the difficulties of getting a stage play produced. Although it had a reading at the Williamstown Theater Festival, after the option was purchased by a leading Hollywood star, the play sat on the shelf never produced. The correspondence and related material reveals Denker's many attempts to bring it to life and his final great frustration.
Some of the earliest writings in the papers are the scripts for False Witness, the first serial drama for television according to Denker, produced in 1939. Most of Denker's writing in the 1940s was for radio, and a variety of radio scripts are in the papers, including scripts from Radio Reader's Digest. Denker made his name with the biblically themed radio series The Greatest Story Ever Told, which ran from 1947 to 1957. Denker wrote every script as well as directed the series that later found life in television and film productions. Indeed, Denker had success with a number of religious productions, including Power of the Resurrection and the Hallmark Hall of Fame production Give Us Barabbas. He acknowledged his Jewish heritage in several works including the novels Payment in Full and The Healers. In addition to Bible stories, Denker used medical and legal stories in his writing and also combed the news for story ideas based on social issues of the day. Many of the files include research material.
Denker wrote seven plays that reached Broadway, including Time Limit!,1956, about an American prisoner of war in North Korea accused of treasonous behavior. Denker subsequently adapted the play for film treatment.A Case of Libel, on Broadway in 1963 and produced for television in 1968, is based on Louis Nizer's courtroom memoir My Life in Court. Other notable plays by Denker include A Far Country, a play about Sigmund Freud, and Horowitz and Mrs. Washington, first published as a novel in 1979 and adapted to the stage in 1980. What Did We Do Wrong?, produced in 1967, became the subject of lengthy legal battles between Denker and the director Michael Myerberg.