Partner Wallace Peter "Pete" Prass
Queer
Places:
2031 Clairmount Ave, Detroit, MI 48206
3455 W Chicago Blvd, Detroit, MI 48206
Seymour Lake Cemetery
Brandon Gardens, Oakland County, Michigan, USA
William John "Bill" Cornell (October 24, 1927 – July 6, 1961) was one of
Detroit’s premier theatrical press agents in the 1950s, represented various
stars when they visited the Motor City, including Ethel Merman and
Marlene Dietrich. Cornell and his partner Peter Prass were killed when a fire gutted their Chicago Boulevard apartment.
William John "Bill" Cornell was born in Detroit, the son of Bernice and Horace Cornell. He attended Northern High School and Wayne University, where he produced several campus plays. He went to work for Helen Bower, who, at one time, snapped at him, "Well, back it!" when he brought to her desk a publicity picture for the Catholic Theater. He had to learn in those fledgling years just out of high school and Wayne that a photograph should always have the name written on the back. Out of his great love for show business, Bill learned fast. Bower introduced Cornell to Maurice Turet, publicity man for Eva LeGallienne and Margaret Webster, playing an engagement at the Shubert Theater. Cornell and Turet went out of the office together and walked down Lafayette. On an impulse Turet invited Cornell into the theater, where he met David T. Nederlander, and the die was cast. "Impie" was Nederlander's nickname for Bill, short for "impresario," as the young man began a long association with the veteran theater man who came to love Bill like a son. Others soon grew to appreciate young Cornell's zeal, his consideration, his scrupulous attention to detail, his courtesy, his intense loyalty.
Richard Aldrich, then married to Gertrude Lawrence, called him to handle publicity at Cape Dennis, Mass. Lawrence asked him to leave Detroit and become her personal press agent, just before her death. Margaret Webster entrusted the young man with the lighting and direction of a production of "Peter and the Wolf" at Stockbridge, Mass., when she could not be present. Eleanor Roosevelt was the narrator, and Cornell came home to tell of having had dinner with her. Cornell had countless experiences, some hilarious, with the stars who came to Detroit, but always they trusted him because he kept their confidences. Marlene Dietrich and Ethel Merman were two of the most recent Detroit visitors to know the thought-fulness of Cornell and Prass. New York press agents shared the admiration for Cornell's work as a publicity man when he established his own firm with his partner, Peter Prass, three years older than Cornell, who shared the same tragic fate. Prass was the financial man of the team. Formerly with Procter and Gamble in Detroit, he had had to learn show business. But he soon developed a special aptitude for escorting stars on their rounds to newspapers, radio and TV appearances, supervising interviews and taking out of town press agents around.
The two had only been back for 10 days from a month-long tour of South America, Cornell's first vacation in five years. They returned to plunge into the work of publicizing "The Guns of Navarone," which was opening at the United Artists Theater. They supervised a luncheon for producer Carl Foreman. They were also working for the Italian film, "La Dolce Vita." It was the sweet life of show business that enthralled Billy Cornell, and later Peter Press. To those who were their friends and associates, life will not again be so sweet. Early on July 6, 1961, their apartment fire took the lives of William J. Cornell and Peter Prass, Detroit's two top theater public relations men. Cornell, 34, and Prass, 37, were found dead in a converted bedroom, which they had fitted up as on office in their apartment, in a four-story brick building on Detroit's west side. Firemen said the fire apparently started from a cigarette dropped on overstuffed furniture. William Cornell and Wallace Peter Prass died from suffucation. The fire inspector said the blaze apparently burned for some time before Cornell and Prass awakened. They had a clear path to safety in the living room, but probably missed their way in the smoke. They may have mistaken the door to their office for the exit from the apartment.
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