Edward Hume is an American film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 and television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, best known for creating and developing several TV series in the 1970s, and for writing the 1983 TV movie

Television movie

A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...

 The Day After

The Day After

The Day After is a 1983 American television movie which aired on November 20, 1983, on the ABC television network. It was seen by more than 100 million people during its initial broadcast....

.

TV series

During the 1970s Hume wrote the pilot scripts for four television series: Cannon

Cannon (TV series)

Cannon is a CBS detective television series produced by Quinn Martin which aired from March 26, 1971 to March 3, 1976.The primary protagonist was the title character, Frank Cannon, played by William Conrad....

(which ran on CBS for six years), Barnaby Jones

Barnaby Jones

Barnaby Jones is a television detective series starring Buddy Ebsen and Lee Meriwether as father- and daughter-in-law who run a private detective firm in Los Angeles. A spin-off from Cannon, the show ran on CBS from January 28, 1973 to April 3, 1980, beginning as a midseason replacement...

(CBS, eight years), The Streets of San Francisco

The Streets of San Francisco

The Streets of San Francisco is a 1970s television police drama filmed on location in San Francisco, California, and produced by Quinn Martin Productions, with the first season produced in association with Warner Bros...

(ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

, six years), and Toma

Toma (TV series)

Toma was a short-lived television series that ran on ABC in 1973 and 1974.-Overview:The series starred Tony Musante and Susan Strasberg and was based on the real-life story and published biography of police detective David Toma. Toma had compiled an amazing arrest record during his years on the...

(ABC, one year). During the week of April 21, 1974, all four series appeared together in the Nielsen top twenty ratings

Nielsen Ratings

Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...

.

The Day After

In 1981, ABC Motion Pictures approached Hume about writing a screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 on nuclear warfare

Nuclear warfare

Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...

, placing no restrictions on the subject, except to show "what nuclear war would be like." The script focused not on politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

 or military decision-makers, but on a small group of average citizens in the American heartland – teacher

Teacher

A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...

s, farmer

Farmer

A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...

s, doctor

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

s, student

Student

A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...

s – who live among unseen ICBM

Intercontinental ballistic missile

An intercontinental ballistic missile is a ballistic missile with a long range typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery...

 missile silos in nearby cornfields. Early in the story, there is background news-chatter of mounting tension between the United States and the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, but it is intentionally left unclear who fires the first missile.

The Day After

The Day After

The Day After is a 1983 American television movie which aired on November 20, 1983, on the ABC television network. It was seen by more than 100 million people during its initial broadcast....

was a cultural and media phenomenon, watched by 100 million people on the night of Sunday, November 20, 1983. Immediately following the movie, ABC aired a special Viewpoint program hosted by Ted Koppel

Ted Koppel

Edward James "Ted" Koppel is an English-born American broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor for Nightline from the program's inception in 1980 until his retirement in late 2005. After leaving Nightline, Koppel worked as managing editor for the Discovery Channel before resigning in 2008...

 to discuss its impact. Among the participants were Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger

Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...

, Robert McNamara

Robert McNamara

Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War...

, Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...

, William F. Buckley, Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel

Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...

, and Secretary of State George P. Shultz

George P. Shultz

George Pratt Shultz is an American economist, statesman, and businessman. He served as the United States Secretary of Labor from 1969 to 1970, as the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1972 to 1974, and as the U.S. Secretary of State from 1982 to 1989...

. In his diaries, President Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 noted that the film was "powerfully done, very effective...and left me greatly depressed." Eventually, The Day After was released in theaters around the world, and aired on Soviet television; the screenplay was nominated for an Emmy Award

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

, and won the Writers Guild of America Award

Writers Guild of America Award

The Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...

 for Best Original Drama Anthology.

Other TV and feature films

In addition to the feature film

Feature film

In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

 screenplays for Summertree

Summertree

Summertree is a 1971 film directed by Anthony Newley. The screenplay was written by Edward Hume and Stephen Yafa, based on the 1967 play of the same name by Ron Cowen.-Plot:...

 (1971), A Reflection of Fear (1973) and Two-Minute Warning

Two-Minute Warning

Two-Minute Warning is a 1976 suspense and action film directed by Larry Peerce and starring Charlton Heston, John Cassavetes, Martin Balsam, Beau Bridges, Jack Klugman, Gena Rowlands, and David Janssen. It was based on the novel of the same name written by George La Fountaine, Sr...

 (1976), Hume wrote the TV movies The Harness (1971), Sweet Hostage (1973) and 21 Hours In Munich (1976), dramatizing the events surrounding the Black September

Black September

The expression Black September may refer to:* Black September in Jordan, the conflict between Palestinian guerrilla organizations and King Hussein of Jordan that began in September 1970 and ended in July 1971 with the expulsion of the PLO to Lebanon....

 terrorist attack on Israeli athletes during the 1972 Summer Olympics

1972 Summer Olympics

The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from August 26 to September 11, 1972....

.

The Terry Fox Story

The Terry Fox Story

The Terry Fox Story is a 1983 film biopic of Canadian amputee and runner Terry Fox. It was written by Howard Hume, John Kastner and Rose Kastner, and directed by Ralph L. Thomas. The film stars Eric Fryer as Fox, Chris Makepeace as his brother Darrell, and Robert Duvall as Fox's publicist, Bill...

 (1983) -- the initial production of HBO Films

HBO Films

HBO Films is a division of the cable television network HBO that produces feature films and miniseries. While much of HBO Films' output is created directly for the television market, such as the film Witness Protection and the mini-series Band of Brothers, Pacific, Generation Kill and Angels in...

—told the story of the young athlete who lost a leg to cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

, yet ran on a prosthesis

Prosthesis

In medicine, a prosthesis, prosthetic, or prosthetic limb is an artificial device extension that replaces a missing body part. It is part of the field of biomechatronics, the science of using mechanical devices with human muscle, skeleton, and nervous systems to assist or enhance motor control...

 across Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 promoting the Marathon of Hope, raising money for cancer research

Cancer research

Cancer research is basic research into cancer in order to identify causes and develop strategies for prevention, diagnosis, treatments and cure....

. The film won the Genie Award for Best Motion Picture

Genie Award for Best Motion Picture

The Genie Award for Best Motion Picture is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian motion picture.-1st Genie Awards:*The Changeling *Cordélia...

, Canada's equivalent of the Oscar. Common Ground (1990) based on the Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 winning book by J. Anthony Lukas

J. Anthony Lukas

Jay Anthony Lukas, aka J. Anthony Lucas , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and author, probably best known for his 1985 book Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, a classic study of race relations and school busing in Boston, Massachusetts, as...

, revisited the turbulence of the Boston busing crisis of 1976 through the lives of three families. The teleplay

Teleplay

A teleplay is a television play, a comedy or drama written or adapted for television. The term surfaced during the 1950s with wide usage to distinguish a television plays from stage plays for the theater and screenplays written for films...

 won the 1990 Humanitas Prize

Humanitas Prize

The Humanitas Prize is an award for film and television writing intended to promote human dignity, meaning, and freedom. It began in 1974 with Father Ellwood "Bud" Kieser — also the founder of Paulist Productions — but is generally not seen as specifically directed toward religious...

.