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Title: Stirling Silliphant Collection
Dates: 1962-1995
Collection Number: WGF-MS-108
Creator/Collector:
Silliphant, Stirling, 1918-1996
Extent: 9.5 linear feet or 8 boxes
Repository:
Writers Guild Foundation Archive
Los Angeles, California 90048
Abstract: 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.
Language of Material: English
Open for research. Available by appointment only.
The responsibility to secure copyright and publication permission rests with the researcher.
[Identification of item]. Stirling Silliphant Collection. Collection Number: WGF-MS-108. Writers Guild Foundation Archive
Donated by Tiana Silliphant via Nat Segaloff on November 1, 2019
Biography/Administrative History
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.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Stirling Silliphant Collection is arranged into two series. Series I: Unproduced Film and TV Projects, 1965-1995 contains
scripts and treatments for numerous feature films, television pilots, television movies, and miniseries that Silliphant wrote
but were never made. Projects span multiple genres and styles and represent the breadth of Silliphant’s career. Notable projects
include an adaptation of Atlas, Shrugged, with notes from Ayn Rand and producer Michael Jaffe; an Osmond Brothers film set
at a wilderness survival camp; a pilot for the Marvel character Daredevil; several projects about Vietnam and/or the Vietnam
war; an adaptation of the Arthur Herzog eco-fiction novel Heat; a version of Douglas Trumbull’s Hiero’s Journey adapted from
the Sterling Lanier novel; Forbidden Planet; ideas for a potential sequel to In The Heat of the Night; an adaptation of the
novel The Khaki Mafia; an adaptation of the Irving Wallace novel the Seventh Secret; an adaptation of the novel The Menorah
Men (titled Sojourners). There are also a few outlines and scripts for Silliphant’s original pilot, miniseries and feature
ideas that he developed over the years.
Series II: Produced Film and TV Projects, 1962-1995 consists of scripts for some films and TV series that were released during
Silliphant’s career. These include the miniseries’ Mussolini and Pearl and the features The Grass Harp, Catch the Heat and
Over the Top. This series also includes press clippings and publicity interviews for a variety of films, TV series and books
that Silliphant wrote.
Film adaptations.
Television adaptations.
Screenplays.
Teleplays.
Television writers.
Screenwriters.