* Ted Willis; Prolific Scriptwriter for British Television

Ted Willis, 74, credited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most prolific television scriptwriter. His serial epic about a plodding London police officer, “Dixon of Dock Green,” enthralled British Broadcasting Corp. TV audiences every Saturday night from 1955 to 1976. Willis became Lord Willis in 1963 when he was given a life peerage in recognition of his achievements. He created 41 TV serials and wrote 37 stage plays, the scripts of 39 feature films, a dozen novels and numerous radio shows. Willis used Dixon’s introductory catch line, “Evening all,” for the title of his second volume of autobiography in 1991. Willis brought Dixon back from the grave after the character was created and then killed in a 1949 cops-and-robbers movie called “The Blue Lamp.” In Chislehurst, England, on Monday after a heart attack.