[2] Writing for the movies was uppermost in Essex's mind throughout the period (and he did co-write the original story for Universal's Man Made Monster (1941)), but "the big break" never came, and World War II intervened as he was called into the draft, serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Five or six days after Essex's discharge in 1947,[1] he ran into an old acquaintance whose new job was finding playwrights to turn into screenwriters for Columbia Pictures.

Essex wrote or co-wrote dozens of movies and numerous TV shows during his lengthy Hollywood career.

[2] Essex co-wrote Universal's The Fat Man (1951), which starred J. Scott Smart as the obese detective Brad Runyon, a role he had played on radio since 1946.

Essex and Earl Felton received screenplay credit on The Las Vegas Story (1952), but not their co-writer Paul Jarrico, who had been blacklisted.