E is for Harlan Ellison, Who Called Me a Nazi

And, of course, E is for Roger Ebert: movie critic and devoted movie fan, who died yesterday. He will be missed.

Today is a great day, for it is Roger Corman’s birthday. He was born 87 years ago today, in Detroit, Michigan, to William and Ann Corman. I doubt very much that his proud parents suspected on April 5, 1926 that their firstborn son was Hollywood-bound.

Another product of the midwest is Harlan Ellison, renowned as a writer of what’s sometimes called speculative fiction. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1934, but also made his way to sunny California, where he sold many scripts to television. Though he and Roger share an interest in fantasy and science fiction, I think few people realize that they came very close to working together on a TV project. I should know: I was there.

When I first came aboard at Roger’s Concorde-New Horizons Pictures in 1986, Roger was thinking of branching out into television production. This despite the fact that the glacial pace of TV decision-making appalled him, and he was never fully comfortable in a roomful of men wearing business suits. After NBC showed itself willing to back a futuristic series produced by Roger, Harlan Ellison was hired to create the pilot for Cutter’s World. This was to be a father-son outer space saga modeled on the old TV western, The Rifleman (which had starred Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford thirty years earlier).

At first working with Harlan on his script was a total joy. No novice (like so many of our usual screenwriters), he was a master at creating character, dynamic action, and atmosphere. He seemed to like me too: he told me that he would consider dubbing one of the female characters Beverly, were it not for the fact that I shared the name with his sister, whom he loathed. Then trouble arose. Once Harlan had written his first draft and we had accumulated extensive notes from NBC, his writing process seemed to grind to a halt. There was a network deadline to be met, and it was clear we would miss it. Under Roger’s direction, I had no choice but to make the changes myself.

When he found out I had dared to try improving his writing, Harlan was livid. His temper, as it turns out, was legendary, and I bore the full brunt of it that day. When I told him I had had no choice but to obey my boss, he sneered that I reminded him of the people of Hitler’s Germany, “just obeying orders.” That’s how, for the one and only time in my life, I was accused of being a Nazi. (No surprise: the series was derailed by NBC soon thereafter.)