Stirling Dale Silliphant was an American screenwriter and producer.
21 Facts About Stirling Silliphant
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Stirling Silliphant is best remembered for his screenplay for In the Heat of the Night, for which he won an Academy Award in 1967, and for creating the television series Naked City, Perry Mason, and Route 66.
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Stirling Silliphant had one brother, Leigh, who was three years younger.
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Stirling Silliphant graduated from Hoover High School and subsequently, from the University of Southern California.
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Stirling Silliphant told Stirling they could save perhaps $100,000 if Stirling could write an extra story for the show that could be shot in El Paso while the production trucks and crew were there.
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Stirling Silliphant obliged, and had the script ready in a couple of days.
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Stirling Silliphant was known for his involvement in two TV series of the sixties, Route 66 and Naked City.
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Stirling 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.
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Stirling Silliphant adapted eight half-hour episodes of Naked City into a tie-in paperback as well, which was published in 1959.
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Stirling Silliphant wrote three television miniseries: Pearl, Space, and Mussolini: The Untold Story.
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Stirling Silliphant wrote the script for a never-produced TV miniseries of Atlas Shrugged, the novel by Ayn Rand.
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Stirling Silliphant penned the screenplay for Shaft in Africa, the third film in the Shaft series.
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Stirling Silliphant was a close friend of Bruce Lee, under whom he studied martial arts.
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Lee was featured in the Stirling Silliphant-penned detective movie Marlowe and four episodes of the series Longstreet.
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Stirling Silliphant had a daughter, Dayle, and son, Loren.
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Loren Stirling Silliphant was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
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In 1974, Silliphant married Tiana Alexandra Du Long, with whom he had a son, Stirling, and step daughter, Melissa.
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Stirling Silliphant became interested in Lee's specialties, and with fellow actor James Coburn they worked on developing The Silent Flute.
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Stirling Silliphant later penned several projects that included Lee and his abilities.
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Stirling Silliphant played Li Tsung, a Jeet Kune Do instructor who teaches it to the main character in the TV show Longstreet.
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Stirling Silliphant died from prostate cancer on April 26,1996, at the age of 78.