Ferrin Fraser was a radio scriptwriter and short story author who collaborated with Frank Buck

Frank Buck (animal collector)

Frank Howard Buck was a hunter and "collector of wild animals," as well as a movie actor, director, writer and producer...

 on radio scripts and five books.

Education and early career

Ferrin Fraser was the son of Louis F. Fraser and Martha Fraser. Louis F. Fraser was secretary-treasurer of the Ferrin & Fraser Coal Company in Lockport, New York. Ferrin Fraser's older brother, Carl E. Fraser, born November 25, 1896, became a coal salesman. A member of the Lockport High School Glee Club and the Lockport High School basketball team (1922), Ferrin Fraser was in the Columbia University class of 1927 but did not graduate. His first successful work for radio was "A Piece of String," adapted from the Guy de Maupassant

Guy de Maupassant

Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents....

 short story. The drama premiered on New York's WABC at 9pm on May 28, 1933. Fraser's books included Lovely ladies: Being the Love Affairs of Ten Women in the Life of a Young Man (1927);‎ The Screaming Portrait‎ (1928); If I Could Fly (1929); and The Passionate Angel (1930).
‎

Collaboration with Frank Buck

Fraser was co-author of five books with Frank Buck

Frank Buck (animal collector)

Frank Howard Buck was a hunter and "collector of wild animals," as well as a movie actor, director, writer and producer...

:

• Fang and Claw
  Fang and Claw (book)
  Fang and Claw was Frank Buck’s third book, which continued his stories of capturing exotic animals.Writing with Ferrin Fraser, Buck related many of his experiences working with and observing other people in the jungle.-Contents:...
  
   (1935)
• a novel, Tim Thompson in the Jungle
  Tim Thompson in the Jungle
  Tim Thompson in the Jungle was Frank Buck’s fourth book, which, in a fictionalized version, continued his stories of capturing exotic animals.-Story:...
  
   (1935);
• On Jungle Trails
  On Jungle Trails
  On Jungle Trails is a book length compilation of Frank Buck’s stories describing how he captures wild animals. For many years, this book was a fifth grade reader in the Texas public schools....
  
   (1936), for many years a sixth grade reader in the Texas public schools
• Buck’s autobiography, All In A Lifetime
  All In A Lifetime
  All in a Lifetime by Frank Buck, with Ferrin Fraser, is Buck’s autobiography.Buck spent much of his life collecting wild animals and as a boy was a bit wild himself. He became a bellhop in a Chicago hotel, got into bad company, and just missed becoming a safe blower...
  
   (1941)
• a lavishly illustrated children’s book, Jungle Animals
  Jungle Animals (book)
  Jungle Animals was Frank Buck’s eighth book, written with Ferrin Fraser, describing some of the animals, birds, and reptiles of the jungle, which Buck had come in contact with in his years of travel around the world...
  
   (1945)

Radio, Film, and Television

Fraser wrote the scripts for Frank Buck's first radio programs, when Buck replaced Amos 'n Andys Freeman Gosden

Freeman Gosden

Freeman Fisher "Gozzie" Gosden was an American radio comedian, and pioneer in the development of the situation comedy form. He is best known for his work in the Amos 'n' Andy series.-Biography:...

 and Charles Correll

Charles Correll

Charles James Correll was an American radio comedian, best known for his work on the Amos 'n' Andy show with Freeman S. Gosden. Correll voiced the central character of Andy Brown, along with various supporting characters. Before teaming up with Gosden, Correll worked as a stenographer and a...

 during their eight-week vacation in 1934.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Fraser was a radio scriptwriter, notably for Little Orphan Annie

Little Orphan Annie

Little Orphan Annie was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and syndicated by Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and made its debut on August 5, 1924 in the New York Daily News...

. Dramatic and thriller programs with scripts by Fraser include Suspense

Suspense (radio program)

-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...

, Lights Out

Lights Out (radio show)

Lights Out is an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum...

 and Nick Carter, Master Detective

Nick Carter, Master Detective

Nick Carter, Master Detective was a Mutual radio crime drama based on tales of the famed detective from Street & Smith's dime novels and pulp magazines. Nick Carter first came to radio as The Return of Nick Carter, a reference to the character's pulp origins, but the title was soon changed to Nick...

.
Fraser also wrote the script for the Joan Lowell

Joan Lowell

Helen Joan Lowell was a movie actress of the silent film era from Berkeley, California. Lowell published a sensational autobiography, Cradle of the Deep in 1929, which turned out to be a pure fabrication....

 film Adventure Girl, and wrote for television during the 1950s.

Magazines and Children's Books

Fraser was the author of more than 500 short stories for magazines, including Argosy

Argosy (magazine)

Argosy was an American pulp magazine, published by Frank Munsey. It is generally considered to be the first American pulp magazine. The magazine began as a general information periodical entitled The Golden Argosy, targeted at the boys adventure market.-Launch of Argosy:In late September 1882,...

, Collier's

Collier's Weekly

Collier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....

, Mystery, Real Detective Tales & Mystery Stories and Redbook

Redbook

Redbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.-History:...

.
Ferrin and Beatrice Fraser published Bennie, the Bear Who Grew Too Fast (1956), a musical nonsense tale that teaches the names of various stringed instruments and the differences in their sizes and sounds, Arturo and Mr. Bang (1963) and other children's music books.

Family and Later Life

Wife Beatrice Ryan Fraser, an author, composer and church musician, was a graduate of the Eastman School of Music

Eastman School of Music

The Eastman School of Music is a music conservatory located in Rochester, New York. The Eastman School is a professional school within the University of Rochester...

 in Rochester and was a featured organist at the Eastman Theater and an organist with the Rochester Philharmonic. She studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...

 and Marcel Dupré

Marcel Dupré

Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...

. Ferrin Fraser and Beatrice Ryan Fraser are buried in Cold Springs Cemetery, Lockport, New York.