Stirling Silliphant
Encyclopedia
Stirling Dale Silliphant (16 January 1918 – 26 April 1996) was an American
screenwriter
and producer
. He was born in Detroit, Michigan
, moved to Glendale, California as a child, graduated from Hoover High School, and was educated at the University of Southern California
. He is probably best known for his screenplay for In the Heat of the Night and co-creating the television series Route 66
. Other features as screenwriter include the Irwin Allen
productions The Towering Inferno
and The Poseidon Adventure, adapting both films from previously published novels. In the case of The Towering Inferno
, Silliphant was tasked with blending two entirely unrelated novels into a single screenplay.
Silliphant is also remembered for his now-infamous bet with Hal Warren
on whether Warren could make a successful horror film
on a limited budget, which was the inspiration for Manos: The Hands of Fate
, and he is portrayed in the 2011 documentary / comedy feature film ""SUENO" The Dream of Hal Warren" from director Tony Trombo.
He was a close friend of Bruce Lee
— under whom he studied martial arts — who was featured in the Silliphant-penned detective movie Marlowe and four episodes of the series Longstreet
. Silliphant was involved in the early part of Bruce Lee's movie and TV career in America, and suggested him for action choreography work on productions like A Walk in the Spring Rain, a Silliphant-scripted film.
They had also been writing on a philosophical martial arts script called The Silent Flute (later known as Circle of Iron), with James Coburn
. It was to star Lee and Coburn, and the pre-production even went to the extent of all three going to India on a location hunt.
for their producers, directors, and cast members. However, he never received an Emmy personally as writer. Time
in 1967 referred to him in a feature article with the statement: "The moving finger...having written, moved on!"
His famous production manager, Sam Manners, called him from the road unit of Route 66
from El Paso, Texas
. He told Stirling they could save perhaps a hundred thousand dollars if Stirling could write an extra story for the show that could be shot in El Paso while all the production trucks and crew were there. Silliphant obliged and had the script ready to shoot in a couple of days. The guest star was a famous character actor, Albert Dekker
, who was flown to do the part over the weekend.
His work papers may be examined by scholars at UCLA
, Westwood campus.
, and was lead writer on the stories incorporated into The Mickey Mouse Club. He produced several independent films such as 5 Against the House with Kim Novak
, Huk! and Maracaibo. Later he broke into television, writing for the live Playhouse 90
. Perry Mason
and Alfred Hitchcock Presents
soon followed.
Silliphant was known for his involvement in two TV series of the sixties, Route 66
and Naked City
. Silliphant was quoted as saying that a number of his Naked City scripts were far superior to the script that won him the Oscar for In the Heat of the Night. One of his later series creations was Longstreet
, which featured a blind detective played by James Franciscus
.
He wrote three television miniseries: Pearl
(about the attack on Pearl Harbor
), Space (based on the James Michener novel about America's early space program), and Mussolini: The Untold Story. He also wrote the script for a never-produced TV miniseries of Atlas Shrugged
, the novel by Ayn Rand
.
, the Charles Bronson
spy thriller Telefon, The Liberation of L.B. Jones
, The Killer Elite
, the Dirty Harry
film The Enforcer
and Over the Top (the latter with its star Sylvester Stallone
).
In addition to the Academy Award, In the Heat of the Night also earned Silliphant an Edgar Award
from the Mystery Writers of America
, for Best Motion Picture Screenplay.
Silliphant also helped to pull film concepts together. He penned the screenplay for Shaft in Africa
, the third film in the Shaft
series. With Chatrichalerm Yukol
, he co-wrote the screenplay to the 1994 Thai action film, Salween
. His last screenplay was for the 1995 film, The Grass Harp.
Although Silliphant worked constantly in Hollywood, he had a well-known aversion against living in Southern California, where he had grown up. After he became successful and famous, he built a house for himself and his family in Tiburon, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. He commuted regularly by air to Los Angeles.
He died in Bangkok
, Thailand
in 1996.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
and producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
. He was born in Detroit, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, moved to Glendale, California as a child, graduated from Hoover High School, and was educated at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
. He is probably best known for his screenplay for In the Heat of the Night and co-creating the television series Route 66
Route 66 (TV series)
Route 66 is an American TV series in which two young men traveled across America. The show ran weekly on CBS from 1960 to 1964. It starred Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and, for two and a half seasons, George Maharis as Buz Murdock. Maharis was ill for much of the third season, during which time Tod...
. Other features as screenwriter include the Irwin Allen
Irwin Allen
Irwin Allen was a television and film director and producer nicknamed "The Master of Disaster" for his work in the disaster film genre. He was also notable for creating a number of television series.- Biography :...
productions The Towering Inferno
The Towering Inferno
The Towering Inferno is a 1974 American action disaster film produced by Irwin Allen featuring an all-star cast led by Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.A co-production between Twentieth Century-Fox and Warner Bros...
and The Poseidon Adventure, adapting both films from previously published novels. In the case of The Towering Inferno
The Towering Inferno
The Towering Inferno is a 1974 American action disaster film produced by Irwin Allen featuring an all-star cast led by Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.A co-production between Twentieth Century-Fox and Warner Bros...
, Silliphant was tasked with blending two entirely unrelated novels into a single screenplay.
Silliphant is also remembered for his now-infamous bet with Hal Warren
Hal Warren
Harold P. Warren , better known as Hal Warren, was an insurance and fertilizer salesman who lived in the El Paso, Texas area. He is best remembered for writing, directing and producing the 1966 movie Manos: The Hands of Fate...
on whether Warren could make a successful horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
on a limited budget, which was the inspiration for Manos: The Hands of Fate
Manos: The Hands of Fate
Manos: The Hands of Fate is an American horror film written, directed, produced by, and starring Harold P. Warren. It is widely recognized to be one of the worst films ever made...
, and he is portrayed in the 2011 documentary / comedy feature film ""SUENO" The Dream of Hal Warren" from director Tony Trombo.
He was a close friend of Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...
— under whom he studied martial arts — who was featured in the Silliphant-penned detective movie Marlowe and four episodes of the series Longstreet
Longstreet (TV series)
Longstreet is an American crime drama series that was broadcast on the ABC in the 1971-1972 season . A 90-minute pilot movie of the same name aired prior to the debut of the series as an ABC Movie of the Week.-Synopsis:...
. Silliphant was involved in the early part of Bruce Lee's movie and TV career in America, and suggested him for action choreography work on productions like A Walk in the Spring Rain, a Silliphant-scripted film.
They had also been writing on a philosophical martial arts script called The Silent Flute (later known as Circle of Iron), with James Coburn
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
. It was to star Lee and Coburn, and the pre-production even went to the extent of all three going to India on a location hunt.
Output
Silliphant was a film and television writer with over 700 hours of prime-time television drama to his credit, many of which earned EmmysEmmy 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...
for their producers, directors, and cast members. However, he never received an Emmy personally as writer. Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
in 1967 referred to him in a feature article with the statement: "The moving finger...having written, moved on!"
His famous production manager, Sam Manners, called him from the road unit of Route 66
Route 66 (TV series)
Route 66 is an American TV series in which two young men traveled across America. The show ran weekly on CBS from 1960 to 1964. It starred Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and, for two and a half seasons, George Maharis as Buz Murdock. Maharis was ill for much of the third season, during which time Tod...
from El Paso, Texas
El Paso, Texas
El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States...
. He told Stirling they could save perhaps a hundred thousand dollars if Stirling could write an extra story for the show that could be shot in El Paso while all the production trucks and crew were there. Silliphant obliged and had the script ready to shoot in a couple of days. The guest star was a famous character actor, Albert Dekker
Albert Dekker
Albert Dekker was an American character actor and politician best known for his roles in Dr. Cyclops, The Killers, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Wild Bunch. He is sometimes credited as Albert Van Dekker or Albert van Dekker...
, who was flown to do the part over the weekend.
His work papers may be examined by scholars at UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
, Westwood campus.
Television
In the earlier part of his career, he was publicity director for Walt DisneyWalt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
, and was lead writer on the stories incorporated into The Mickey Mouse Club. He produced several independent films such as 5 Against the House with Kim Novak
Kim Novak
Kim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
, Huk! and Maracaibo. Later he broke into television, writing for the live Playhouse 90
Playhouse 90
Playhouse 90 is an American television anthology series that was telecast on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. It originated from CBS Television City in Los Angeles, California...
. Perry Mason
Perry Mason (TV series)
Perry Mason is an American legal drama produced by Paisano Productions that ran from September 1957 to May 1966 on CBS. The title character, portrayed by Raymond Burr, is a fictional Los Angeles defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner...
and Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
soon followed.
Silliphant was known for his involvement in two TV series of the sixties, Route 66
Route 66 (TV series)
Route 66 is an American TV series in which two young men traveled across America. The show ran weekly on CBS from 1960 to 1964. It starred Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and, for two and a half seasons, George Maharis as Buz Murdock. Maharis was ill for much of the third season, during which time Tod...
and Naked City
Naked City (TV series)
Naked City is a police drama series which aired from 1958 to 1963 on the ABC television network. It was inspired by the 1948 motion picture of the same name, and mimics its dramatic "semi-documentary" format....
. Silliphant was quoted as saying that a number of his Naked City scripts were far superior to the script that won him the Oscar for In the Heat of the Night. One of his later series creations was Longstreet
Longstreet (TV series)
Longstreet is an American crime drama series that was broadcast on the ABC in the 1971-1972 season . A 90-minute pilot movie of the same name aired prior to the debut of the series as an ABC Movie of the Week.-Synopsis:...
, which featured a blind detective played by James Franciscus
James Franciscus
James Grover Franciscus was an American actor, known for his roles in the series The Naked City and The Investigators, and in feature films.-Life and career:...
.
He wrote three television miniseries: Pearl
Pearl (miniseries)
Pearl was a 1978 American miniseries on ABC about events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. It starred a large cast, notably Dennis Weaver, Robert Wagner, Angie Dickinson, Lesley Ann Warren, Gregg Henry, Max Gail, Richard Anderson, Marion Ross, Audra Lindley, Char Fontane, and Adam Arkin...
(about the attack on Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
), Space (based on the James Michener novel about America's early space program), and Mussolini: The Untold Story. He also wrote the script for a never-produced TV miniseries of Atlas Shrugged
Atlas Shrugged
Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the United States. Rand's fourth and last novel, it was also her longest, and the one she considered to be her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing...
, the novel by Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
.
Film
In total he wrote or co-wrote 47 feature films, including Village of the DamnedVillage of the Damned (1960 film)
Village of the Damned is a 1960 British science fiction film by German director Wolf Rilla. The film is a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. The lead role of Professor Gordon Zellaby was played by George Sanders. This film was #92 on Bravo's 100 Scariest...
, the Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
spy thriller Telefon, The Liberation of L.B. Jones
The Liberation of L.B. Jones
The Liberation of L.B. Jones is a 1970 American drama film directed by William Wyler, his final project in a career that spanned 45 years.The screenplay by Jesse Hill Ford and Stirling Silliphant is based on Ford's 1965 novel The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones. The novel, in turn, was based on...
, The Killer Elite
The Killer Elite
The Killer Elite is a 1975 American action thriller film starring James Caan and Robert Duvall and directed by Sam Peckinpah.The screenplay was written by Marc Norman and Stirling Silliphant adapted from the Robert Syd Hopkins novel, Monkey in the Middle. The novel was written under Hopkins'...
, the Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry
Dirty Harry is a 1971 American crime thriller produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan....
film The Enforcer
The Enforcer (1976 film)
The Enforcer is a 1976 American film, and the third in the Dirty Harry film series. Directed by James Fargo, it stars Clint Eastwood as Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan, Tyne Daly as Inspector Kate Moore and DeVeren Bookwalter as terrorist leader/main antagonist Bobby Maxwell.-Plot:In Marin County,...
and Over the Top (the latter with its star Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone
Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone , commonly known as Sylvester Stallone, and nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, film director and occasional painter. Stallone is known for his machismo and Hollywood action roles. Two of the notable characters he has portrayed...
).
In addition to the Academy Award, In the Heat of the Night also earned Silliphant an Edgar Award
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...
from the Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America
Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
, for Best Motion Picture Screenplay.
Silliphant also helped to pull film concepts together. He penned the screenplay for Shaft in Africa
Shaft in Africa
Shaft in Africa, released in 1973, is the third film in the blaxploitation trilogy of films that starred actor Richard Roundtree as John Shaft. John Guillermin directed and Stirling Silliphant did the screenplay. The cost went up to $2,142, 000, but the gross fell to $1,458,000...
, the third film in the Shaft
Shaft (1971 film)
Shaft is a 1971 American blaxploitation film directed by Gordon Parks, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. An action film with elements of film noir, Shaft tells the story of a black private detective, John Shaft, who travels through Harlem and to the Italian mob neighborhoods in order to find the...
series. With Chatrichalerm Yukol
Chatrichalerm Yukol
His Serene Highness Prince Chatrichalerm Yukol is a Thai film director, screenwriter and film producer. A prolific director since the 1970s, among his films is the 2001 historical epic, The Legend of Suriyothai. A member of the Thai royal family, his official royal title is Mom Chao, or M.C., the...
, he co-wrote the screenplay to the 1994 Thai action film, Salween
Salween (film)
Salween is a 1994 Thai action-drama film directed by Chatrichalerm Yukol and starring Sorapong Chatree and Chatchai Plengpanich. Sombat Metanee's son, Siricoup Metanee, also stars as a young police lieutenant, newly arrived at a rough-and-tumble post in a Thai-Myanmar border town on the Salween...
. His last screenplay was for the 1995 film, The Grass Harp.
Although Silliphant worked constantly in Hollywood, he had a well-known aversion against living in Southern California, where he had grown up. After he became successful and famous, he built a house for himself and his family in Tiburon, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. He commuted regularly by air to Los Angeles.
He died in Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
in 1996.
External links
- Stirling Silliphant profile