Writer favored nuclear themes
T.S. Cook, 65, an Oscarnominated film and television writer best known for co-writing the 1979 nuclear accident thriller “The China Syndrome,” died Jan. 5 of cancer at his Hollywood home, said his wife, Monique de Varennes.
“The China Syndrome,” which details the story of a fictional near-meltdown at a Southern California nuclear reactor, raised questions about the safety of nuclear power long before the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine and the catastrophic 2011 earthquake and tsunami at the nuclear plant near Fukushima, Japan.
An immediate box office and critical success, “The China Syndrome,” which starred Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Michael Douglas, gained further attention when its release was followed less than two weeks later by a real-life accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. A Newsweek reviewer called the film “a rare phenomenon — a piece of popular entertainment that immediately foreshadows a major news event and then helps explain it.”
Cook co-wrote the film with Mike Gray and James Bridges, who also directed it, and the three men shared Oscar nominations for best original screenplay. The work won them top screenplay honors from the Writers Guild of America, which also honored Cook in 1990 for the nuclear-themed television play “Nightbreaker.”
Born Aug. 25, 1947, in Cleveland, Thomas Stephen Cook was the son of Horace, a business executive, and Betty Cook, a homemaker. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Denison University in Iowa in 1965 and a master of fine arts from the University of Iowa in 1973. In 1975, he married de Varennes, and they had two children.
Cook, who was also a producer and playwright, wrote many television movies, including “High Noon,” an update of the classic western; “Forgotten Sins,” which concerned child sexual abuse; and “Lucy,” about the loving yet tumultuous relationship between stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. He also cowrote a story on which the HBO film “The Tuskegee Airmen” was based.
In recent years, Cook had turned to playwriting. He also taught play- and screenwriting in classes that included workshops for aspiring Muslim writers in an L.A. program run by the Muslim Public Affairs Council.