SOHL, Jerry 1913-2002 (Nathan Butler, Roberta Jean Mountjoy, Sean Mei Sullivan)

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born December 2, 1913, in Los Angeles, CA; died November 4, 2002, in Thousand Oaks, CA. Journalist and author. Sohl was best known as a science-fiction novelist and contributor to the television series Twilight Zone and Star Trek. He attended the Central College of Arts and Sciences in Chicago, but dropped out in 1934 to pursue a career in journalism. Serving in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, he returned home to join the staff at the Daily Pantagraph in Bloomington, Illinois, where he worked as a photographer, reporter, and critic until 1958. Even before leaving the newspaper, he had embarked on a career writing for television, contributing scripts to such series as Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Route 66, as well as to science-fiction programs. He also began writing novels, the first of which was The Haploids (1952). Most of Sohl's work was in the genre of science fiction, but he also occasionally wrote mysteries, horror, or adventure novels. Sohl completed over two dozen novels, some pseudonymously, and three screenplays, including Twelve Hours to Kill (1960) and Die, Monster, Die (1963). His last novels, Death Sleep and Black Thunder, appeared in 1983.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

books

St. James Guide to Science-Fiction Writers, fourth edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

periodicals

Chicago Tribune, November 11, 2002, section 1, p. 13.

Independent (London, England), November 12, 2002, p. 18.

Los Angeles Times, November 10, 2002, p. B18.

Washington Post, November 20, 2002, p. B6.