Hubert Tamblyn Spiva, known as Tam Spiva (born 1932), is a television

Television

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

 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:...

 in Pacific Palisades, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, who is best known for his work on 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...

's The Brady Bunch

The Brady Bunch

The Brady Bunch is an American sitcom created by Sherwood Schwartz and starring Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, and Ann B. Davis. The series revolved around a large blended family...

situation comedy

Situation comedy

A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...

 (1969–1974), starring Florence Henderson

Florence Henderson

Florence Agnes Henderson is an American actress and singer. She is perhaps best known for her role of Carol Brady on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974...

 and Robert Reed

Robert Reed

Robert Reed was a prolific American character actor of stage, film and television. In his first big break, he played Kenneth Preston on the popular 1960s TV legal drama, The Defenders, alongside E. G. Marshall. But he was best remembered for portraying the father, Mike Brady, on the popular...

, and CBS's family drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 Gentle Ben

Gentle Ben

Gentle Ben is a children's novel by author Walt Morey, first published in 1965. The book concerns the friendship between the title character, a bear, and a young boy named Mark...

(1967–1969) starring Dennis Weaver

Dennis Weaver

William Dennis Weaver was an American actor, best known for his work in television, including roles on Gunsmoke, as Marshal Sam McCloud on the NBC police drama McCloud, and the 1971 TV movie Duel....

.

Spiva is originally from the small city of Minden

Minden, Louisiana

Minden is a city in the American state of Louisiana. It serves as the parish seat of Webster Parish and is located twenty-eight miles east of Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish. The population, which has been stable since 1960, was 13,027 at the 2000 census...

, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

. His parents, Hubert Spiva, a former foreign correspondent, and the former Lilla Stewart (1905–1959), operated the Webster Printing Company and the former Minden Herald and Webster Review newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

s, forerunners of the current Minden Press-Herald

Minden Press-Herald

The Minden Press-Herald is a Monday-Friday daily newspaper published in Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, by Specht Newspapers, Inc...

. Lilla Spiva managed the papers after her husband's death in 1939 and was herself publisher and society editor of the Minden Herald and a member of the Louisiana Press Association. On January 23, 1960, the press association posthumously honored her for her journalistic accomplishments. Spiva's aunt was Mary Amanda Stewart (1903–1994), whom he visited in the Stewart home, later the Farley home, when he returned to his hometown.

Spiva was first married to the former Martha Emily Farrow Brown, and the couple had a daughter, Alizon Farrow Spiva. He then wed the former Laura Lee Dulberger, and the couple had a daughter, Mary Amanda, and a son, Reagan Anthony. He now lives with his third wife, Phyllis Ellen Spiva, and stepdaughter, Danielle. There are four living Spiva children including his stepdaughter, Danielle.
Spiva graduated from the defunct Western Military Academy in Alton

Alton, Illinois

Alton is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 27,865 at the 2010 census. It is a part of the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area in Southern Illinois...

 in Madison County

Madison County, Illinois

Madison County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. Madison County is part of the Metro-East region of the St. Louis Metro Area. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 269,282, which is an increase of 4.0% from 258,941 in 2000. The county seat is Edwardsville, home to...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, near St. Louis

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

 and then Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

 in Evanston

Evanston, Illinois

Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...

, near Chicago. He also studied at the London School of Film Technique. His early free-lance writing was rewarded in the script for the 1965 film Island of the Lost. In addition to The Brady Bunch and Gentle Ben, Spiva garnered credits for two other ABC series, The FBI starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is an American actor known for his starring roles in the television series 77 Sunset Strip and The F.B.I. He is also known as recurring character "Dandy Jim Buckley" in the series Maverick and as the voice behind the character Alfred Pennyworth in Batman: The Animated Series...

, and Dan August

Dan August

Dan August is a short-lived 1970-1971 crime drama television series, which starred Burt Reynolds as the title character: a police lieutenant who investigated homicide cases in his hometown of Santa Luisa, California...

starring Burt Reynolds

Burt Reynolds

Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. is an American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Bobby "Gator" McCluskey in White Lightning and sequel Gator, Paul Crewe and Coach Nate Scarborough in The Longest Yard and its...

.

Here is a list of programs written by Spiva for The Brady Bunch:

• "Peter and the Wolf"
• "Tiki Caves"
• "Pass the Tabu"
• "A Fistful of Reasons"
• "The Slumber Caper"
• "Grand Canyon or Bust"
• "The Brady Braves"
• "Hawaii Bound"
• "The Big Sprain"

and for Gentle Ben:

• "Jennifer"
• "Mama Jolie"
• "The Wayward Bear, Part 1"
• "The Wayward Bear, Part 2"
• "Fire in the Glades"