Stirling Silliphant: The Fingers of God

by Nat Segaloff

  Untitled original. February 20, 1986. Characters and outline. “A film in the genre of 48 HRS and the French movie Diva, that is, a film of suspense and of action, yet, more importantly, a film about a unique and crackling relationship between two very special human beings: an investigator from the south side of Chicago and a rebellious heiress, as together they set out to find the missing younger sister of the heiress.” Twenty-three pages.

  Vietnam, Inc. Treatment written July 7, 1972.

  Voice on the Wind (Paramount, 1965). Original Silliphant story, which he and Steve Alexander (producer of The Slender Thread) would produce and which would costar Elizabeth Ashley and Sidney Poitier. No doubt abandoned after Ashley was separated from what became the Anne Bancroft role in Thread.

  We Fly Anything (1956). Series pilot written for producers Frank Cooper and Irving Pincus.

  The Weather Wars (Carl Foreman, 1978). Rewrite of a 133-page main character and outline treatment for a group jeopardy picture that takes place during a global meteorological catastrophe now known as global warming. Written for producer Carl Foreman. “He was wonderful to work with. But Carl passed away and the script was never produced.”

  When in Rome (1980). Original romantic comedy written for Warner Bros. that never made the production schedule.

  When Worlds Collide (Universal-Zanuck/Brown, 1977). “Not sure about this title, but it was a gigantic project I wrote in the mid-Seventies for Zanuck/ Brown. Still a marvelous script but much too costly to make.”

  Winchell and Runyon. Full screen treatment about the New York newspapermen written for Warner Bros. Never developed.

  Windward Passage. (Date not available). Stirling Silliphant-Bruce Bilson Production. 147 page treatment for seafaring adventure.

  Zero Option (1987). 113-page screenplay for thriller.

  The Zimbardo Experiment (ABC-TV). 90-minute ABC Theatre teleplay by Mark Silliphant based on the 1971 Stanford Prison experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo in which twenty-four white, middle-class students pretended to be prisoners and guards and, before long, each set adapted all too well to their enforced roles.

  Silliphant’s personal files contain numerous additional projects for which intriguing titles, notes, snippets, or full treatments and screenplays exist, including: A Way of Life, Ansel McCutcheon, Barnstormers, Bookin’, Camp Survival, The Empty Copper Sea, Escapade, Herzog (adaptation of Saul Bellow novel), Kickback, The Long Lavender Look, Louisiana Story (not the Flaherty docu-drama), The Man In-Between, Mayday, Of My Bones Are Coral Made, The Osmonds, The President’s Man, The Rattlewatch, Reunion, Saigon, The Sequestering, The Seventh Secret, Sojourners, Solitaire (a.k.a. Five Minutes of Silence), Spartan Project, The Spy Who Loved Me (James Bond movie pitch), Summer Reel, Take Three, Tri Makai/Trident, Tuff Enuff, Windward Passage.

  Selected Bibliography

  Ball, John, In the Heat of the Night. New York: Bantam Books, 1967.

  Brooks, Tim and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present, Sixth Ed. New York: Ballantine Books, 1995

  Froug, William, The Screenwriter Looks At the Screenwriter. New York: Mac-Millan & Company, 1972.

  Goldman, William, Adventures in the Screen Trade. New York: Warner Books, 1983.

  Harris, Mark, Pictures at a Revolution. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008.

  Hirschhorn, Clive, The Universal Story. London, England: Octopus Books, 1983.

  Hopkins, Jerry, Bangkok Babylon: The Real-Life Exploits of Bangkok’s Legendary Expatriates are often Stranger than Fiction. Singapore: Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd., 2005.

  Jewison, Norman, This Terrible Business Has Been Good To Me. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Key Porter Books, Ltd., 2004.

  Kermode, Mark, Fire in the Sky, Hell Under Water. Produced by Andrew Abbott and Russell Leven. London, England: Nobles Gate for Channel 4, 2003.

  McGilligan, Patrick, Robert Altman: Jumping Off the Cliff. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.

  McGilligan, Patrick, Clint: The Life and Legend. London, England: Harper-Collins, 1999.

  Mirisch, Walter, We Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.

  Nogueira, Nui, “Wendell Mayes: The Jobs Poured Over Me,” Backstory 3, Patrick McGilligan, ed. Berkeley, California: The University of California Press, 1997.

  Orlean, Susan. Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012.

  Poitier, Sidney, The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography. San Francisco, California: HarperCollins, 2000.

  Smith, Dave, Disney A to Z. New York: Hyperion Press, 1996.

  Wiley, Mason & Damien Bona, Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993.

  Copyrights and Credits

  This page is an extension of the Copyright page.

  Stirling Silliphant Papers, 1950-1985. (Collections 134 and 1079). Performing Arts Library Special Collections, Young Research Library, University of California at Los Angeles. The appearance in this work of previously unpublished non-interview material by Stirling Silliphant constitutes their first publication, and copyright is hereby claimed: ©2013 The Estate of Stirling Silliphant.

  “OSCAR®,” “OSCARS®,” “ACADEMY AWARD®,” “ACADEMY AWARDS®,” “OSCAR NIGHT®,” “A.M.P.A.S.®” and the federally registered “Oscar” design mark are registered and copyrighted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

  Cliff Robertson interview courtesy of the Archive of American Television, interviewed by Stephen J. Abramson on March 1, 2005. EMMY® is the trademark property of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences/National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Visit http://www.emmytvlegends.org for more information.

  Excerpts from “Up Close and Personal with Stirling Silliphant” by John Corcoran, Kick Magazine, July-November, 1980; Hollywood, California: CFW Enterprises. © John Corcoran. Used by permission.

  Excerpts from If I Was a Highway and “Letters at 3AM: Stirling at Road’s End” by Michael Ventura ©Michael Ventura. Used by permission.

  Silliphant’s IMDb credits used by permission of Internet Movie Database.

  Those interested in learning more about Bruce Lee should consult the website created by his daughter, Shannon, who runs the Bruce Lee Foundation.

  Every effort has been made to trace the provenance of photographs used in this book. The publisher will remove them or correct omissions upon presentation of certified ownership by a different party than that which is credited.

  Finally, a note to journalists who interview celebrities: send your work to the people you cover. Only because a handful of interviewers had the courtesy to mail copies of their articles and TV interviews to Stirling Silliphant are they represented in this book. Now that the Internet has made history ephemeral, don’t count on Google to save your stuff. When you interview someone, send a copy afterward. And be sure to label it.

  Endnotes

  1. WGA rates for 1985 were $29,320 for a screenplay for a high-budget film and $42,000 for treatment and screenplay. Silliphant usually managed to wangle a treatment first.

  2. Conversation with the author.

  3. Time, August 9, 1963. The other four fingers were Paul Henning (The Beverly Hillbillies), Nat Hiken (Car 54, Where Are You?), Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone), and Reginald Rose (The Defenders). Time reported that Silliphant’s “manages to hold his salary down to $145,000” for tax reasons. The producer’s name was not given.

  4. Cool Hand Luke: Donn Pearce (from his novel) and Frank R. Pierson; The Graduate: Buck Henry; In Cold Blood: Richard Brooks; Ulysses: Joseph Strick and Fred Haines.

  5. See Mark Harris’s meticulous Pictures at a Revolution (New York: The Penguin Press, 2008), to which acknowledgment is hereby given.

  6. Scholars will note that Will H. Hays, Valenti’s distant predecessor, introduced “The Formula” in 1924 that was refined into what became known as The Production Code of Self-Regulation in
1930.

  7. An inside joke making the rounds at the time had a producer rejecting a script by telling the writer, “Your characters are too complex for a budget this big.”

  8. Unless otherwise cited, Silliphant’s quotes are drawn from the faxed correspondence with the author for Backstory 3 (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1997) and subsequent conversations.

  9. Per the Academy’s official transcript: “I really have no speech. The Writers Guild doesn’t permit us to do any speculative writing. I’m deeply grateful and very touched. Thank you, Rod, Norman, Walter, Sidney, everyone. Thank you.”

  10. Interviewed by Bill Collins, “Bill Collins Showbiz,” August 19, 1979, Seven Network, NSW (Australia).

  11. Interviewed by Reed Farrell, c. 1977. Archive video, not further identified, from Silliphant Estate.

  12. Allan Silliphant interview, February 14, 2013.

  13. By 1940 he had changed the spelling of his name to Stirling to honor his father’s brother, Stirling. He also cringed at the middle name Dale.

  14. In interviews, Silliphant insisted that he was born on Pingree Street (“I wasn’t actually born on the street, you understand, but in a house on Pingree”), but his birth certificate lists High Street, which is a Metamora address.

  15. Stirling Silliphant, “What is a Nice Movie Writer Like You Doing Out Here in the Middle of This Nasty Ocean, Anyway?” The Pennant, September, 1973.

  16. He was on the air when the Long Beach earthquake struck on March 10, 1933.

  17. Allan Silliphant, ibid.

  18. John Corcoran, “Up Close and Personal with Stirling Silliphant,” Kick magazine, July, 1980 (Hollywood, California: CFW Enterprises).

  19. The story is cited in his prepared biography as “The Enchanted Lantern” but is corrected in his hand to “Little Whisperers.” (UCLA).

  20. To reduce confusion from now on, the father Lemuel Lee Silliphant will continue to be called Lee; his second son will be called Leigh; Stirling will be called Stirling or Silliphant. Stirling Garff Silliphant will generally be called Stirling Garff, and, later, Stirling Linh Silliphant will be called Stirling Linh. None is a Junior.

  21. Stirling Garff Silliphant interview, February 14, 2013.

  22. Zanuck and Skouras would trade places in 1962 when Zanuck was summoned by desperate stockholders to save the rapidly sinking studio in the wake of Skouras’s failed Cleopatra and Zanuck’s triumphant The Longest Day.

  23. Stirling Garff Silliphant, op cit.

  24. Stirling Linh interview with the author, May 25, 2013.

  25. Silliphant interview (unsigned) Sacramento Bee, May 29, 1983. He told the story in somewhat more profane terms to William Froug, The Screenwriter Looks at the Screenwriter (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1972). Obviously Bogart did not anticipate today’s youth market that deems anybody over 30 an antique.

  26. Producer David Brown, who was in the studio’s story department at the time, enjoyed recalling how Zanuck summoned all his creative people to a meeting and announced, “We are no longer interested in stories with depth. We are only interested in stories with width.” (Conversation with Author)

  27. Much of Silliphant’s personal paperwork, including bound copies of his scripts, was destroyed in a home electrical fire in 1969 in a home where he lived in Appian Way in Los Angeles. This water-stained book survived.

  28. Bulletin of Screen Achievement, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, December 10, 1956. Hand corrections specify that screenplay came first, then the novel.

  29. Released May 21, 1958, by Paramount Pictures.

  30. Disneyland opened to the public on July 18, 1955. Dave Smith, Disney A to Z: The Official Encyclopedia (New York: Hyperion Books, 1996).

  31. Source: swww.originalmmc.com fan website for The Mickey Mouse Club.

  32. It was also the title of a 1949 Alfred Hitchcock film set in Australia, which is located geographically under the Tropic of Capricorn.

  33. Time magazine, August 9, 1963.

  34. Suspicion was a one-season, hour-long series produced for NBC by MCA/Revue and Hitchcock’s Shamley Productions. Hitchcock was executive producer but did not appear, and directed only the premiere episode, “Four O’clock,” airing September 30, 1957.

  35. (“Nothing more.”) While Hitchcock was alive, Silliphant’s interviews stressed the director’s involvement, presumably out of respect for the filmmaker’s reputation. This interview occurred after Hitchcock died in 1980 when Silliphant owed no fealty to the legend.

  36. From John Kier Cross’s short story. In a twist on Cyrano de Bergerac, a woman falls in love with a brilliant ventriloquist only to discover that he’s the dummy and his dummy is the man who has been sending her love letters.

  37. Silliphant was mistaken about the episode’s flagship status. “Voice in the Night” aired March 24, 1958 and concerned shipwreck survivors who wash ashore on an island where a deadly fungus threatens them. The cast included James Coburn, who would later figure prominently in Silliphant’s life and in the legendary The Silent Flute.

  38. By actual count, he wrote thirty-one half-hour Naked City episodes and six 60-minute episodes.

  39. “Take Off Your Hat When a Funeral Passes,” airdate September 27, 1961. The teleplay is credited to Howard Rodman and Anthony Spinner.

  40. Larry Siegel and Mort Drucker, MAD Magazine No. 60, January, 1961.

  41. At one point, Silliphant purchased a set of encyclopedias about mental illnesses and, when he was stuck for a plot, he would flip through them to find somebody to base a script on.

  42. Dassin would be named and blacklisted in 1952.

  43. The dog’s name was Rin Tin Tin but hyphens were added for TV.

  44. CBC mainstay Elwy Yost interview, posted on YouTube. Undated, but probably 1983 at the time of the publication of Steel Tiger.

  45. Contracts in Silliphant family collection.

  46. New York: Dell Publishing Company, Inc., 1959.

  47. A similar theme is found in the hour-long Naked City episode “Prime of Life” (February 13, 1963) in which Paul Burke watches an execution in all its detail (except for the actual electrocution). Beside him in the witness box, incidentally, is Gene Hackman in an early role.

  48. Susan Orlean, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012.

  49. One of which was Village of the Damned (q.v.).

  50. Film Daily, December 23, 1965.

  51. Yost, op cit.

  52. Silliphant and Dassin tried to work together years later on a project called The Khaki Mafia.

  53. Cecil Smith, Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1962.

  54. Concurrent with writing Route 66, Silliphant was also writing episodes for Checkmate, Mr. Lucky, G.E. Theatre, and Naked City.

  55. “Ed” from Ednamarie, then Mrs. Silliphant, and “ling” from Stirling.

  56. Silliphant may have first tried to buy On the Road from Jack Kerouac, who refused.

  57. Maharis had appeared in several Naked City episodes, including a nascent pilot for Route 66, “Four Sweet Corners.”

  58. An assumption is that Buz, Tod, and Linc are always able to find jobs in every town they visit. This was not questioned in the booming American economy of the early 1960s.

  59. William Froug, The Screenwriter Looks at the Screenwriter. New York: Mac-Millan and Company, 1972.

  60. Few viewers may have noticed, however; that same day, NASA astronaut Alan B. Shepard made his sub-orbital flight atop Friendship 7, inaugurating America’s manned space program and pre-empting most TV programming.