Leland F. Cooley; Novelist, TV Pioneer

Leland Frederick Cooley, author of 16 novels and nonfiction books and radio and television pioneer who wrote and produced “The Perry Como Show” for six of its 15 years, has died. He was 89.

Cooley died Oct. 27 in the Napa County community of Pope Valley, Calif., of prostate cancer, said his wife, Regina Francoise Cooley.

Among the author’s best-known books was the 1963 novel “The Richest Poor Folks,” about a 1920s Sacramento Valley farming community. A Times reviewer pronounced the book at its publication “good reading . . . a bit of rare literary oxygen.”

Cooley’s historical novel “California,” published in 1973, won the University of California Award and the Cypress College Americana Award for distinguished contribution to the history of the state.

Born in Oakland, Cooley spent much of his life in Los Angeles and Orange counties, especially Laguna Beach, which he profiled in one of his popular novels, “The Art Colony,” in 1975.

With his first wife, Lee Morrison Cooley, the novelist wrote several nonfiction books on practical topics, including “The Simple Truth About Western Land Investment,” “How to Avoid the Retirement Trap” and “Pre-Medicated Murder? Your Self-Defense Manual,” about over-the-counter drugs.

Cooley had plenty of material to write about, as one Times writer observed in 1962, calling him “a novelist whose own life adventures would make good reading.”

At 17, Cooley set to sea in the merchant marine in the South Pacific. He went to Europe as a correspondent for Trans-Radio Press during the Spanish Civil War and in 1936 was ousted from Italy for his unsympathetic coverage of the Italian-Ethiopian War.

In his youth, Cooley worked as a newscaster and sports announcer on Los Angeles radio station KNX, often commenting on the stylish ringside attire of colorful Hollywood star and boxing fan Mae West. He had his own radio show, “Curtain Calls,” was a technical director for Paramount Pictures and served as writer and master of ceremonies on “The Andre Kostelanetz Show” in New York.

Adept at radio, Cooley became one of television’s first full-time producers. He started in 1937 with the Don Lee Broadcasting System’s Experimental Station W6XAC in Los Angeles. Two decades later, his work on “The Perry Como Show” earned him a Christopher Award.

For charity, Cooley produced fund-raisers for such groups as the National Council to Prevent Blindness and the March of Dimes.

In addition to his wife, Cooley is survived by children Allison Scott-Cooley and Pamela Lee Cooley, stepchildren Michael Dunn and Elizabeth Dunn Calderwood, and three grandchildren.