NEW YORK (AP) Frederick Knott, who wrote Dial M For Murder and Wait Until Dark, died on Tuesday in his Manhattan home. He was 86.

Seven London producers turned down Dial M for Murder before the British Broadcasting Corporation accepted it as a television drama.

Knott, who hated writing and wrote only for money, became so discouraged that he almost tore up the script.

But after rave reviews on the BBC, the play opened in London to critical acclaim. It was also a hit on Broadway in 1952 and was translated into two dozen languages. It remains a staple of summer stock and school productions. Knott's next play, Write Me a Murder, opened at the Belasco Theater in Oct. 1961 and ran for 196 performances.

His third and final play, Wait Until Dark, opened in Feb. 1966 at the Barrymore Theater and ran for 11 months on Broadway and two years in London. It was made into a successful movie with Audrey Hepburn in 1967.

Knott had imagined two other plays -- one about an elderly couple confronted by a gang in Vermont and the other about a brothel -- but he never wrote them down. His wife, Ann Hillary Knott, said he no longer had the drive or the material ambition.