He spent the majority of his career in London and Hollywood, specialising in light thrillers, mysteries and sex comedies.
He is best known for the films Vertigo (1958), The Captain's Paradise (1953), Mr Denning Drives North (1951) and Obsession (1949), and the plays I Killed the Count and The Gazebo.
He moved to England in the 1920s to study medicine at Cambridge University, but dropped out before graduating and went to work in advertising, writing in his spare time.
[3][4] While there he and Kathleen Mary Robinson founded Whitehall Productions, operating out of the Minerva Theatre in Kings Cross.
[6] Coppel also wrote for radio and contributed to the script of Smithy (1946), one of the few feature films made in Australia during this time.
Coppel was hired to rewrite some scenes on No Highway in the Sky (1951) starring James Stewart and wrote Mr. Denning Drives North (1951) based on his own novel.
With Samuel A. Taylor, Coppel supplied the screenplay for Vertigo (1958), based on the Boileau-Narcejac novel D'entre les morts.
He is survived by his son Chris Coppel who lives in the UK and continues to represent his father's works.