Ernest Tidyman
Birth : 1928-01-01, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Death : 1984-07-14
History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Ernest Tidyman (January 1, 1928 - July 14, 1984) was a Cleveland-born American author and screenwriter, best known for his novels featuring the African-American detective John Shaft. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the film version of Shaft with John D.F. Black in 1971.
His screenplay for The French Connection garnered him an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, as well as a Golden Globe Award, a Writers Guild of America Award, and an Edgar Award.
He also wrote the screenplay for the 1973 film High Plains Drifter, which was directed by Clint Eastwood, who was also its star. Tidyman also wrote the sequel to Shaft, Shaft's Big Score which appeared in theaters in 1972.
In 1974, he published Dummy, a non-fiction account of the story of an accused deaf-mute murderer. It was nominated for an Edgar in the Fact Crime category.
He co-wrote A Force of One in 1979, one of Chuck Norris's earlier films.
Thereafter, Tidyman never attained the kind of success he enjoyed with The French Connection and the Shaft series, although he had a high note in 1980 with his teleplay for the TV movie Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (which he also had a hand in producing), which garnered him an Emmy nomination. For creating the Shaft books, he became one of the few white individuals to win an NAACP Image Award.
Tidyman married Susan Gould, and fathered two children — Adam and Nicholas. Gould passed a few years later. In 1982, he married former Motown soul singer Chris Clark, who had co-written the screenplay for Lady Sings the Blues (1972). He died two years later from a perforated ulcer.
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Novel
JJ, aka John Shaft Jr., may be a cyber security expert with a degree from MIT, but to uncover the truth behind his best friend’s untimely death, he needs an education only his dad can provide. Absent throughout JJ’s youth, the legendary locked-and-loaded John Shaft agrees to help his progeny navigate Harlem’s heroin-infested underbelly.
Novel
New York police detective John Shaft arrests Walter Wade Jr. for a racially motivated slaying. But the only eyewitness disappears, and Wade jumps bail for Switzerland. Two years later Wade returns to face trial, confident his money and influence will get him acquitted -- especially since he's paid a drug kingpin to kill the witness.
Characters
Sequel to the original movie about a hard-boiled Kansas City cop finds him tracking a colleague's killer to Las Vegas.
Writer
A businessman is stalked by his murderous twin brother, who has just been released from a mental hospital.
Screenplay
Wichita policeman, Evan Stark, goes to Las Vegas in search of his missing sister, Laura.
Writer
An American journalist covering the civil war in Nicaragua falls in love with a beautiful Sandinista rebel.
Co-Producer
Filmed on location at Alcatraz Island, this two-part "whole story" actually concentrates on a handful of the denizens behind the cold grey walls of "The Rock". Michael Beck plays the real-life Clarence Carnes, an Oklahoma Choctaw Indian said to be the youngest man ever incarcerated in the notorious maximum security prison. Serving a 99-year sentence for a gas station holdup and murder, Carnes makes periodic attempts to escape, the final attempt being the most violent. Many of the subordinate characters are fictional (as are most of the details concerning Carnes' escape efforts); the one exception is Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz", here portrayed by Art Carney as a gentle, kindly philosopher. Telly Savalas, a costar of the Burt Lancaster vehicle Birdman of Alcatraz, also guest starred in the 1980 film. Originally titled Alcatraz and Clarence Carnes, this made-for-TV movie wavers between gritty realism and "I'm bustin' outta here!" artifice.
Teleplay
Filmed on location at Alcatraz Island, this two-part "whole story" actually concentrates on a handful of the denizens behind the cold grey walls of "The Rock". Michael Beck plays the real-life Clarence Carnes, an Oklahoma Choctaw Indian said to be the youngest man ever incarcerated in the notorious maximum security prison. Serving a 99-year sentence for a gas station holdup and murder, Carnes makes periodic attempts to escape, the final attempt being the most violent. Many of the subordinate characters are fictional (as are most of the details concerning Carnes' escape efforts); the one exception is Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz", here portrayed by Art Carney as a gentle, kindly philosopher. Telly Savalas, a costar of the Burt Lancaster vehicle Birdman of Alcatraz, also guest starred in the 1980 film. Originally titled Alcatraz and Clarence Carnes, this made-for-TV movie wavers between gritty realism and "I'm bustin' outta here!" artifice.
Writer
Loosely based on the life of Jimmy Hoffa, this traces the rise of Tommy Vanda (Joe Don Baker) from a Chicago dock worker to an influential labor leader who, like Hoffa, finds himself behind bars in a federal prison, and not long after, taken for a ride by shady men never to be seen again.
Story
Karate champion Matt Logan is enlisted by the police to train officers in self-defense after narcotics agents are killed by an assailant using the martial arts.
Screenplay
Karate champion Matt Logan is enlisted by the police to train officers in self-defense after narcotics agents are killed by an assailant using the martial arts.
Producer
The real-life account of an illiterate, deaf-and-mute, black youth who was accused of murdering a prostitute, and the relationship that developed between him and his court-appointed attorney, who also was deaf, and the events leading up to his precedent-setting trial.
Writer
The real-life account of an illiterate, deaf-and-mute, black youth who was accused of murdering a prostitute, and the relationship that developed between him and his court-appointed attorney, who also was deaf, and the events leading up to his precedent-setting trial.
Writer
Earl Eischied is a man with his hands full. As the Chief of Detectives in New York City he is trying to break up a group of black militants that are on a crime spree including the killing of a police officer. He is also trying to battle with a mayor and police commissioner that want him out of his job.
Writer
A Mafia boss is enraged when he is suspected of smuggling a heroin shipment into San Francisco. He dispatches his nephew, a hotshot Anglo-Sicilian lawyer, to identify the real culprit. The lawyer also enlists the aid of his best friend, a grand prix driver with an adventurous streak.
Dialogue
A Mafia boss is enraged when he is suspected of smuggling a heroin shipment into San Francisco. He dispatches his nephew, a hotshot Anglo-Sicilian lawyer, to identify the real culprit. The lawyer also enlists the aid of his best friend, a grand prix driver with an adventurous streak.
Screenplay
Police officer Patty Butler, alias "Chicklet," is the live-in girlfriend of Thomas 'Stick' Henderson to gather evidence. Detective Bo Lockley is instructed to try to find her, not knowing she's also a cop.
Author
Detective John Shaft travels incognito to Ethiopia, then France, to bust a human trafficking ring.
Writer
A gunfighting stranger comes to the small settlement of Lago. After gunning down three gunmen who tried to kill him, the townsfolk decide to hire the Stranger to hold off three outlaws who are on their way.
Writer
John Shaft is back as the lady-loved black detective cop on the search for the murderer of a client.
Producer
John Shaft is back as the lady-loved black detective cop on the search for the murderer of a client.
Screenplay
Tough narcotics detective 'Popeye' Doyle is in hot pursuit of a suave French drug dealer who may be the key to a huge heroin-smuggling operation.
Executive Producer
Cool black private eye John Shaft is hired by a crime lord to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter.
Screenplay
Cool black private eye John Shaft is hired by a crime lord to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter.
Novel
Cool black private eye John Shaft is hired by a crime lord to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter.
