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. He became the first Australian to receive an Academy Award nomination for screenwriting with "The Captain's Paradise", which was nominated for Best Story in 1953. That year he published a novel "The Last Parable" (1953). Coppel was used by Warwick Pictures on "Hell Below Zero" (1954) and "The Black Knight" (1954); like "No Highway" and "Captain's Paradise" they were British films with American stars and Coppel wanted to work in Hollywood. Coppel moved to Los Angeles in 1954, where he wrote a number of scripts. He did some uncredited work on "To Catch a Thief" (1955) and did the thriller "Appointment with a Shadow" (1957). With Samuel A. Taylor, Coppel supplied the screenplay for "Vertigo" (1958), based on the Boileau-Narcejac novel "D'entre les morts". He wrote the plays "The Genius and the Goddess" (1957) and "The Joshua Tree" (1958), and saw "The Captain's Paradise" adapted into a musical as "Oh, Captain!" (1958). He had a big hit with " The Gazebo" (1959), based on a story by Coppel and his wife; this was later filmed although someone else did the screenplay. Coppel adapted "The Captain's Paradise" (1961) for stage and did a swashbuckler for MGM "Swordsman of Siena" (1962). He spent the 1960s mostly working in Europe and London. He adapted his own story "Laughs with a Stranger" into "Moment to Moment" (1966). His last two credits were a pair of sex comedies co-written with Denis Norden, "The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom" and "The Statue", based on his play "Chip Chip Chip". He also wrote the plays "Not in My Bed, You Don’t" (1968), "Cadenza" and "A Bird in the Nest" and the TV play "A Kiss is Just a Kiss" (1971). Coppel died of colon cancer on 22 January 1972, in London. He was married twice. He is survived by his son Chris Coppel who lives in the UK and continues to represent his father's works.