Lorenzo Semple, Jr.

Lorenzo Semple Jr. (2008)

Lorenzo Semple, Jr. (born March 27, 1923 in Mount Kisko , New York - † March 28, 2014 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American screenwriter .

Life

After graduating from Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts , Lorenzo Semple, Jr. graduated from Yale University in 1944 to serve first as an ambulance driver and then in the United States Army during World War II . For this he later received a bronze star , which he said he only received “for survival while others died”. After returning to the US, he realized that he wanted to continue writing, which is why, after he had published several short stories in Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post in 1951 and his first play Tonight in Samarkand premiered on Broadway in 1955 , he followed up Hollywood moved to try his luck as a screenwriter. With The Golden Fleecing his second play was performed in 1959. Directed by Richard Thorpe , it was made into a film in 1961 with Steve McQueen in the lead role as The Marriage Machine.

After writing screenplays for several series, he moved with his young family to Spain , where he received the offer to write the pilot of the new Batman series. The accompanying television film Batman keeps the world in suspense was followed by other films such as King Kong , The Angel with the Killer Hand , for which he received an award from the New York Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Screenplay , and the James Bond film Never Say Never . In total, he was involved in more than 30 film and television productions, most recently in the early 1990s.

Lorenzo Semple, Jr. fathered a son and two daughters, one of whom is screenwriter and producer Maria Semple .

Filmography (selection)

• 1955: The Alcoa Hour (TV series)
• 1966–1967: Batman (TV series, 16 episodes)
• 1966: Batman holds the world in suspense (Batman)
• 1967: Fire Dragon (Fathom)
• 1968: The Angel with the Killer Hand (Pretty Poison)
• 1969: The Man with the Cat Cage (Daddy's Gone A-Hunting)
• 1973: Papillon
• 1974: The Super Cops
• 1974: Witness to a Conspiracy (The Parallax View)
• 1975: You Don't Die Underwater (The Drowning Pool)
• 1975: Three Days of the Condor (Three Days of the Condor)
• 1976: King Kong
• 1980: Flash Gordon
• 1983: Never Say Never (Never Say Never Again)
• 1984: Sheena - Queen of the Jungle (Sheena)
• 1984: Playing with Fear (Rearview Mirror)
• 1986: Lance Never Too Young to Die
• 1993: Rapture - Murder According to Program (Rapture)

Awards (selection)

Golden Raspberry

• 1985 : Nomination for Worst Screenplay with Sheena - Queen of the Jungle

New York Film Critics Circle Award

• 1968: Award for the best screenplay with The Angel with the Murderer's Hand

literature

• Mrs. Lorenzo Semple: I Was Grandmother of Ambulance Driver Decorated by French , The New York Times , December 1943
• Andrew Geer: Mercy in Hell. An American Ambulance Driver with the Eighth Army , New York 1943

Web links

• Lorenzo Semple, Jr. in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Lorenzo Semple Jr. in the Internet Broadway Database

Individual evidence

1. ^ Lorenzo Semple Jr. dies at 91; successful Hollywood screenwriter in 1970s and '80s. In: Los Angeles Times, March 29, 2014 (accessed March 30, 2014).
2. ↑ Lorenzo Semple Jr., Creator of TV's 'Batman,' Dies at 91
3. ^ Ray Morton: King Kong: The History of a Movie Icon from Fay Wray to Peter Jackson , Applause Theater and Cinema Books 2005, ISBN 1-55783-669-8 , p. 152.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Lorenzo Semple '40 ( Memento of the original from February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at brooksschool.org , accessed April 7, 2012 
5. ↑ Amnon Kabatchnik: Blood on the Stage, 1950-1975: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery and Detection , Scarecrow Press 2011, ISBN 978-0-8108-7783-2 , page 318.