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Stirling Dale Silliphant (born 16 January 1918 in Detroit, Michigan, USA - died 26 April 1996 in Bangkok, Thailand) was a prolific American screenwriter and producer. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, and educated at the University of Southern California. He is probably best known for his Academy-award winning screenplay for In the Heat of the Night. Other acclaimed features as screenwriter include Irwin Allen productions The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure.

Silliphant is also remembered for his now-infamous bet with Hal Warren on whether Warren could make a successful horror movie on a limited budget, which was the inspiration for Manos: The Hands of Fate. He was a close friend of Bruce Lee, who was featured in several Silliphant-penned films and episodes of the series Longstreet. In fact, Silliphant shared a Hollywood mansion with Lee between marriages. Silliphant was very much involved in launching Bruce Lee into the movie and TV industries.

Silliphant was a film and television writer with over 700 hours of prime-time television drama to his credit, many of which earned Emmys for their producers, directors, and cast members. However, he never received an Emmy personally as writer. Time in 1967 referred to him in a feature article with the statement: "The moving finger...having written, moved on!"

A famous Hollywood story underscores his ability to work fast. His famous production manager, Sam Manners, called him from the road unit of Route 66 from El Paso, Texas. He told Stirling they could save perhaps a hundred thousand dollars if Stirling could write a story that could be shot in El Paso while all the production trucks and crew were there. Silliphant obliged and had the script ready to shoot in a couple of days. The guest star was a famous character actor, Albert Dekker, who was flown to do the part over the weekend.

His work papers may be examined by scholars at UCLA, Westwood campus.

In the earlier part of his career he was publicity director for Walt Disney, and was lead writer on the stories incorporated into The Mickey Mouse Club. He produced several independent films such as 5 Against the House with Kim Novak, Huk! and Maracaibo. Later he broke into television, writing for the live Playhouse 90. Perry Mason and Alfred Hitchcock Presents soon followed.

Silliphant was especially famous for his involvement in two seminal TV series of the sixties, Route 66 and Naked City. In fact, Silliphant was quoted as saying that a number of his Naked City scripts were far superior to the script that won him the Oscar for In the Heat of the Night. One of his later series creations was Longstreet, which featured a blind detective played by James Franciscus.

He wrote three television miniseries: Pearl (about the attack on Pearl Harbor), Space (based on the James Michener novel about America's early space program), and Mussolini: The Untold Story. He also wrote the script for a never-produced TV miniseries of Atlas Shrugged, the novel by Ayn Rand.

In total he wrote 47 feature films, including Village of the Damned (1960), Telefon, The Gauntlet, and The Killer Elite, helping to create iconic figures like Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry and many of the Charles Bronson tough guy characters.

In addition to the Academy Award, In the Heat of the Night also earned Silliphant an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America, for Best Motion Picture Screenplay.

Silliphant also helped to pull film concepts together. He penned the screenplay for Shaft in Africa, the third film in the Shaft series. With Chatrichalerm Yukol, he co-wrote the screenplay to the 1994 Thai action film, Salween.

He died in Bangkok, Thailand in 1996.

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Stirling Silliphant

• Stirling Silliphant at the Internet Movie Database
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