Gene Thompson; Protege of Groucho Marx Became Prolific TV, Radio Writer

Gene Thompson, a teenage protege of Groucho Marx who became an eclectic and prolific writer of comedy, drama and mystery for radio, television and ultimately novels, has died. He was 76.

Thompson died Saturday night of cancer at his Los Angeles home, said his son, David.

A native San Franciscan, Thompson wanted to be an actor as a child and wangled a backstage visit with Dame May Whitty when she appeared in “Romeo and Juliet” in San Francisco. The two corresponded until he graduated from high school at age 16 and took the train to Los Angeles, where she began coaching him.

Through another Whitty pupil, Thompson was invited to lunch in a private home where he saw a man walk downstairs doing what he considered an excellent imitation of Groucho Marx.

“I see you are an admirer of the Marx Brothers,” said the brash youth. “I am too. I ushered at their last picture, ‘The Big Store.’ I’ve seen it 42 times. I know all the lines.”

“That’s more than I do,” said--not an imitator--but the great Groucho himself.

Marx invited the boy to dinner with such companions as Moss Hart and Thompson’s future parents-in-law, the actress Gloria Stuart and screenwriter Arthur Sheekman, greeting the overdressed youth with: “Come in, sit down and shut up.”

Thompson listened well that night, and thereafter when Marx took him into his home, invited him to write comedy sketches for him and got him a job writing for radio’s “Duffy’s Tavern.”

Just 18, Thompson landed a position as an MGM screenwriter only to have Marx call and say he had resigned. The wunderkind writer, the comedian said, must go to college first.

So Thompson duly entered UC Santa Barbara and then transferred to UC Berkeley, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Greek, English and philosophy. After that, he studied life for four years in Germany as director of publications for the Army Corps of Engineers, English instructor for Army personnel and lecturer at the University of Heidelberg.

Next came a decade of advertising copy writing for C.J. La Roche in New York and BBD&O; in San Francisco.

By the mid-1960s, Thompson had settled permanently in Los Angeles, churning out television comedy scripts for such series as “My Favorite Martian,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “The Lucy Show” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

He held the record for writing the most scripts for the romantic anthology series “Love, American Style,” and then segued into dramatic series--”Marcus Welby, M.D.,” “Cannon” and “Columbo.”

By the late 1970s, Thompson was ready to try still a new medium--books. His first effort was “Lupe,” about an 11-year-old Chicano boy involving the occult. A Newsweek review of the 1977 book rated it “genuinely horrifying, written with rare intelligence and unusual respect for factual details.”

Thompson gradually settled into mysteries with “Murder Mystery” in 1980, telling The Times: “In this form you can say anything you want. I’ve fallen in love with it.” Other books included “Nobody Cared for Kate,” set in southern France, and “A Cup of Death.”

“I was once worried about the switch to writing prose,” he said in one Times interview, “since I’d been in television for so long and it is very much a collaborative medium. That’s what I was used to. Now I find I like to sit here all alone. The characters are so real to me, and so is what’s happening.”

Thompson is survived by his wife of 45 years, writer Sylvia Thompson; four children, David, Benjamin, Dinah and Amanda; his sister, Corinne Philips; his mother-in-law, Gloria Stuart; and 12 grandchildren.