Dennis Spooner was an English television writer and script editor, known primarily for his programmes about fictional spies and his work in children's television in the 1960s.
19 Facts About Dennis Spooner
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Dennis Spooner had long-lasting professional working relationships with a number of other British screenwriters and producers, notably Brian Clemens, Terry Nation, Monty Berman and Richard Harris, with whom he developed several programmes.
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Dennis Spooner did not desire a career in business and tried to break into the entertainment industry through performance, forming a comedy double act with Benny Davis, now a journalist living in Spain.
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Dennis Spooner then turned to writing and began selling half-hour comedy scripts to the BBC TV comedian Harry Worth.
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Dennis Spooner contributed to the ITV police procedural series No Hiding Place and Ghost Squad as well as to the top-rated comedy series Bootsie and Snudge and to ATV's attempt to revive Tony Hancock's career in Hancock.
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Around this time Dennis Spooner met Brian Clemens; they struck up a partnership that lasted for the rest of Dennis Spooner's career.
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Dennis Spooner worked on Doctor Who almost exclusively in the formative William Hartnell era.
8.
Dennis Spooner served as script editor for 6 months from The Rescue to The Chase.
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Dennis Spooner was responsible for helping to foster a new paradigm for the historical type of adventure.
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In sustaining the notion for a full serial, Dennis Spooner gave birth to an approach to historical events that has continued through to the most recent series of the programme.
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However, Dennis Spooner had already been pressed into service on another programme that Terry Nation was script-editing.
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Dennis Spooner then turned to an old friend, the television writer Richard Harris, to help him in creating a new venture, Man in a Suitcase.
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However, the more significant partnership Dennis Spooner initiated in 1967 was with Monty Berman, an ITC producer with whom he launched a production company called Scoton Productions.
14.
Between 1967 and 1971 Berman and Dennis Spooner created The Champions, Department S, its spin-off Jason King, and Randall and Hopkirk.
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Dennis Spooner's scripts were accepted for series such as Bergerac and The Professionals.
16.
When Clemens made his next assault on American television, The New Avengers, Dennis Spooner played a much larger role: he and Clemens wrote the overwhelming majority of the scripts.
17.
Dennis Spooner continued to try to break into the American market, but sold only one idea to a prime time network show: the third season Remington Steele episode "Puzzled Steele" gave story credit to Spooner, Clemens and fellow scriptwriter Jeff Melvoin.
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Dennis Spooner was a well-known bridge player and wrote two books, Useful Hints for Useless Players and Diary of a Palooka.
19.
Dennis Spooner often added a subtle reference to bridge to his scripts, such as naming a villain who owned two nightclubs "Stayman".