The Stirling Silliphant Collection is comprised of scripts, outlines, notes and correspondence for film and television projects that screenwriter Silliphant wrote throughout his career. The majority of the projects included are unproduced or unaired.

Academy-Award winning Screenwriter Stirling Silliphant was born in Detroit on January 16, 1918 and grew up in Glendale, CA. After graduating from the University of Southern California and serving in World War II, he worked in promotions and advertising at Disney and 20th Century Fox. He then pursued screenwriting and his first credit came in 1955, as co-writer of the film 5 Against the House. He worked steadily for forty years as a film and television writer and producer. Silliphant wrote episodes for numerous television series’ and co-created the popular anthology TV series’ Route 66 and The Naked City. Later he wrote miniseries and movies for television such as Pearl (1978), Fly Away Home (1981), Space (1985) and Mussolini (1985). Silliphant found fame in writing for film when, in 1967, he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film In the Heat of the Night. His other feature work includes writing disaster movies for producer Irwin Allen, The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and the Towering Inferno (1974). In the late 1960s, he studied martial arts under Bruce Lee. Silliphant and Lee, along with James Coburn, collaborated on a film project The Silent Flute. Lee died before filming could begin and the film was later released as Circle of Iron in 1978. Lee introduced Silliphant to one if his students, Tiana Alexandra, and the two were married in 1974. This was Silliphant’s fourth and final marriage. Silliphant became disillusioned with Hollywood and moved to Bangkok, Thailand in 1988. He continued to work until his death on April 26,1996 from pancreatic cancer. He is survived by his wife Tiana and children Stirling and Dayle.

9.5 linear feet or 8 boxes

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