William Templeton (screenwriter)

William Templeton
Born	(1913-06-07)7 June 1913 Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Died	23 October 1973(1973-10-23) (aged 60) Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Occupation	Playwright, screenwriter
Nationality	Scottish
Spouse	Elizabeth Esterhazy (1953–61)
Relatives	Christopher Templeton b.1960 (son)

William Pettigrew Templeton (7 June 1913 – 23 October 1973) was a Scottish playwright and screenwriter who made a major contribution to the Golden Age of Television^[1][2] writing a string of episodic dramas for American prime time television during the 1950s and 1960s,^[3] a time when many hour-long anthology drama series received wide critical acclaim. Templeton had a long film career both in the UK and the US. His adaptation of The Fallen Idol (also known as The Lost Illusion) a 1948 film with Ralph Richardson directed by Carol Reed and based on the short story The Basement Room by Graham Greene was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay, and won a BAFTA Award for Best British Film.^[4]

Early life[]

At 20 Templeton wrote the one-act play The King's Spaniel, which ran at the Royal Lyceum Theatre. At 24, his first three-act play, Circus Murder, was picked up and produced by Jevan Brandon Thomas at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow in 1937, then quickly exported to London by the producer Esme Church for a run at the New Theatre (1938) under the title The Painted Smile. Theatre critic WA Darlington^[5] of The Daily Telegraph called it "a cleverly created illusion". After being decommissioned from the RAF after World War II, Templeton continued to write a string of critically acclaimed West End plays, including:

• (1946) Exercise Bowler – (Arts then transferred to the Scala Theatre) produced by Alec Clunes
• (1948) The Ivory Tower – (The Vaudeville Theatre) produced by Charles B. Cochran
• (1950) You Won't Need the Halo (Arts Theatre) produced by Alec Clunes
• (1954) Keep in a Cool Place – (Saville Theatre) produced by Jevan Brandon Thomas

Writing in the Sunday Times on 21 April 1946, theatre critic James Agate wrote of the play, 'Exercise Bowler': 'This play has an immense amount to say, is inventive, brilliantly theatrical and magnificently laid out for actors. Best of all, it is not pretentious in the blank-verse manner beloved of the high-brow poetic dramatist'. ^[6] Templeton wrote the largely anti-war play under the pseudonym 'T. Atkinson', a generic slang name for British soldiers at this time.^[7]

Hollywood career[]

At the height of his theatre career in the late 1940s, Templeton started to attract the attention of British and Hollywood film makers, securing a series of contracts from major film companies including Sir Alexander Korda at London Films, Walt Disney, Desilu and Universal.^[8] He became best known for his 1956 adaptation of George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984,^[9] with Edmond O'Brien as Winston Smith:^[10] "It was a masterly adaptation that depicted with power and poignancy and terrifying beauty the end result of thought control", wrote Jack Gould in The New York Times.^[11] His screenplay adaptation of the book All on a Summer's Day by HLV Fletcher became the British crime thriller Double Confession (1950) directed by Ken Annakin, starring Peter Lorre.^[12]

Comfortable writing for a variety of genres, Templeton was able to contribute to several of the major television series of the period: The Alcoa Hour (1954–1955);^[13] Goodyear Playhouse (1956); Matinee Theatre (1956); Sword of Freedom (1957): The Untouchables (1960); the original Adventures of Robin Hood^[14] series (1957) with Richard Greene^[15] and the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse^[16] anthology series broadcast by CBS from 1948 to 1958 and produced by Desi Arnaz. It was at this time that the Studio One producer declared William Templeton to be "One of the country's most distinguished writers in television".

Personal life[]

William married the Hungarian actress Elizabeth Getrude Esterházy on 22 September 1953 in Westport, Connecticut. Samuel Goldwyn Jr. was his best man. The marriage lasted until 1961 when the couple were divorced. They had one child, Christopher Frederick Templeton. On 23 October 1973, Templeton died of cirrhosis at the age of 60 at the Glasgow home of his elderly aunt, having just directed a trilogy of documentary programmes for NBC titled The Distant Drummer ^[17] narrated by Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum and Rod Steiger.

Filmography[]

References[]