Full Details
William Morrison
| Full Name: | Joseph Samachson |
| Born: | October 13, 1906 Trenton, New Jersey |
| Died: | June 2, 1980 Chicago, Illinois |
| Occupation: | Chemist, Author |
| Nationality: | American |
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Biography
William Morrison also writes under the pen name of Brett Sterling
Joseph Samachson was born on October 13, 1906 in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Russian Jewish parents, Anna (Roshansky) and David Louis Samachson, a businessman.
A graduate of Rutgers University, he earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Yale at the age of 23. He was an assistant professor at the College of Medicine, University of Illinois. He also headed a laboratory in metabolic research at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Hines, Illinois, a research unit dealing with diseases that affect the skeleton. Comics historian Jerry Bails wrote that Samachson worked as a research chemist for the American Molasses Company until 1938, leaving to become a "freelance technical writer".
He wrote a number of science fiction works (under the pseudonym William Morrison), including two novels published in Startling Stories, the 1937 pulp title Murder of a Professor and short stories for a number of magazines, including Money from Heaven (1942). He also penned a couple of Captain Future pulp novels c.1941-1942 (under the house name "Brett Sterling"), and had work appear in the science fiction magazine Galaxy.
Samachson also wrote Comics, scripts for Captain Video and His Video Rangers and also articles for scientific journals. With his wife he wrote articles about travel and the arts.
