Stirling Silliphant

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Stirling Silliphant (born January 16, 1918 in Detroit , Michigan , † April 26, 1996 in Bangkok , Thailand ; actually: Sterling Dale Silliphant ) was an American screenwriter , film producer and film director .

biography

origin

Sterling Silliphant was born as the eldest son of Sterling Silliphant, a Canadian who immigrated to the USA in 1911 , and Ethel M. Silliphant in Detroit, but grew up in Glendale , California, with his three years younger brother Leigh , where his father made a living earned as a real estate agent. Around 1930 the father left the family and moved to Phoenix , ( Arizona ) with Sterling junior ; the parents divorced. Both father and son also changed at the beginning of the 1930s its name and now no longer called themselves St e rling but St i rling .

Career

Silliphant graduated from the University of California in 1938 , and served as a Lieutenant in the Navy between 1943 and 1946 during World War II . After retiring from active service, he first began to work in the publicity department of the Disney group, but moved to Twentieth Century Fox that same year, where he also worked in the PR department from 1946 to 1953.

In 1953 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in film. 5 against the House marked his debut as a screenwriter and film producer in 1955. Up until the early 1970s, he wrote mostly for children's programs such as the Mickey Mouse Club or television series, most of which are unknown today. One of his most famous television series is Perry Mason , for which he wrote two scripts in 1957.

From the beginning of the 1970s, and even before that, he began to write for feature films, even if his work was only partially rewarded. In 1968, Silliphant won an Oscar in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for his work on In the Heat of the Night . In the same year he also won a Golden Globe Award for the same film . A year later, in 1969, he was honored with another Globe for Charly . At The Poseidon Adventure (1972) Silliphant was involved as co-author. In 1973 he directed the first and only film romance A Time for Love .

The film marks the turning point in the career of Silliphant, who from this point on had less success in choosing his scripts. One example of this was the action film Over the Top , produced in 1987 , which was nominated for three Golden Raspberries among other things .

Family and death

In 1974 he married the native Vietnamese Thi Thanh Nga, and through her came into contact with Buddhism , to whose belief he also converted . The couple, who had a son and two daughters together, soon had their second home in Bangkok.

Here Stirling Silliphant lost his long battle with prostate cancer at the age of 78 .

Filmography

Awards

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Silliphant, Stirling
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Silliphant, Sterling Dale (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American screenwriter, film producer and film director
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Detroit , Michigan , USA
DATE OF DEATH April 26, 1996
Place of death Bangkok , Thailand