MacNeil, Neil, 1903-1980

Willis Todhunter Ballard was born on December 13, 1903 in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended schools in Cleveland and Westtown, Pennsylvania and, in 1926, graduated from Wilmington College, Wilmington, Ohio. Right after college he began working for his father’s company, F. W. Ballard Company, as an engineer constructing power plants and transmission lines. He stayed there for two years.

His transition to a career as a professional writer began with the editorship of an electrical trade magazine. His first published story, “Gambler’s Luck,” appeared in Brief Stories in 1927. Ballard was a prolific writer and went on to write over a thousand stories for magazines such as Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, Argosy, McCall’s, Esquire, and Liberty . He also wrote stories for pulp magazines such as Black Mask, Brief Stories, Dime Mystery, Popular Western, and Ranch Romances . Ballard wrote about fifty televison and movie scripts including The Outcast for Republic Pictures. Some television series he wrote for were “Cowboy G-Men,” “Death Valley Days,” “Shotgun Slade,” “Shannon,” and “Alias Smith and Jones.”

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