Catacombs Credits GuideWriters
Catacombs Credits GuideHusband & wife writing team; films Island Of The Burning Damned (1967), Captain Nemo & The Underwater City (1969); TV includes episodes of Dr Who (Mark Of The Rani, 1985, Trail Of A Time Lord part 3, 1986, Time & The Rani, 1987)
Born in 1934, Barwick had worked as a lab technician and in computing when he was asked to add some computer verisimilitude to a Danger Man episode. He then wrote some action sequences for the episodes, before joining Anderson and expanding the original half-hour Thunderbirds episodes to a full hour. He began writing full episodes, and by Captain Scarlet he was a story editor, writing for this, Joe 90, Secret Service, UFO and The Protectors. He also worked on both Thunderbirds films, Doppelganger, and coscripted the unfilmed 5 Star 5. He also wrote most of the Terrahawks series and the Space police pilot. He also wrote for Randall & Hopkirk Deceased (1968), The Champions (1968), The Persuaders (1971), and he was script editor and writer on The Professionals (1978-83). He has written several novels with Donald James (as by James Barwick) and with Shane Rimmer.
The American writer has written episodes of Thriller (1960), The Defenders (1961-64) and Cannon (1970-75). Winner of Writer's Guild of America award.
He was recruited in August 1973, preparing a Writer's Guide in September, before leaving the show in October before filming began.
Christopher Penfold on George Bellak: Gerry and Sylvia wanted me to work on it and they were apologetic that ITC needed an American name script editor. I was very appreciative of that and I believe they went to the United States with the express purpose of finding somebody with whom I could work. I was very grateful to them for that. They found a man who indeed I got on very well with, and to this day George Bellak is a very close friend of mine. George got on extremely well with me but he very soon failed to get on with Gerry. George survived long enough to write the first and second drafts of the story that eventually became 'Breakaway' and he then went off back to the United States. 'The Void Ahead' was his title for it. In fact, quite a lot of what became 'Breakaway' is actually my work.
George had a very much looser attitude than Gerry towards the mechanics of science fiction. He was much more interested in using science fiction as a vehicle for expanding awareness about ordinary human characters. He was much more interested in human character than Gerry was. He was less concerned with the mechanical plot process which Gerry had in mind, driven largely by the requirements of multi commercial break broadcasts. George had much less patience with that than Gerry himself did. Also I think that there was a feeling, probably from Gerry, that George didn't have the level of commitment to Gerry and the series that he would expect. For George it was 'another job' and he was still busy writing plays for television in New York and Hollywood. He was living what is actually a very normal life for a freelance writer. Gerry, I think, felt he wasn't giving to Space: 1999 the full commitment he expected. I think also that George came to believe that the work he was doing in the United States was more important to him than the work he was doing on 'Space'. I was very sorry to see George go; he was a very humanising influence on the whole production. He was a very imaginative man and a very creative writer. We've kept in touch ever since and he's still a very good friend. He now writes books.
(2002 interview) George brought with him, in the short time he was involved with the project, enormous humanity. Victor Bergman was very much his creation. I think that the humanity that George brought to what was essentially a space fiction series was something that marked out Space 1999 series one.
Dicks was an advertising copywriter until he moved into writing drama, first for radio and later television, including episodes of Crossroads and The Avengers (1962-68). From 1968 to 1974 he was script editor on Dr Who, and afterwards he continued to write many scripts for the series. He also wrote Dr Who stage plays in 1974 and 1989, and most of the juvenile novelisations of Dr Who serials, numbering over 50 books. He also created and wrote the Moonbase 3 series in 1973, and he has written other juvenile books. In the 1980s he became a script editor for BBC television 'classic' serials, including an adaption of The Invisible Man in 1984.
A former political journalist, Feely has written books including Embrace The Sun and Limelight and an anthology of Henry James titled Affairs Of The Heart, which he adapted into a TV series. He has written 7 plays, including thrillers and more 'complex' plays. In 1966 he was story editor of the Mystery & Imagination series. He has written episodes of The Avengers (1961), The Prisoner (1969), UFO, The Persuaders (1971), Arthur Of The Britons (1972), The Protectors, The New Avengers (1976-77), and The Return of the Saint (1978). He created and wrote for the series The Gentle Touch (1979-85), Cat's Eyes (1985-87), and No. 10 (1983). He cowrote the miniseries Mistral's Daughter in 1984. He died in 2000, aged 72.
Born in 1947, Goldsmith has written 5 novels including the best selling Bullion, and non fiction including Voyage In The Beagle, about his own adventures aboard a square rigger in South America. In the mid 1980s he was editor of the Journals Of Stephen Spender, and the Chairman of the Writer's Guild Of Great Britain. He has written episodes of The Protectors, The New Avengers (1977), The Professionals (1978), The Return of the Saint (1979) and he wrote the series John Silver's Return To Treasure Island (1986), and the film of Roald Dahl's Danny, The Champion Of The World (1989). He often writes for director Kevin Connor, including the miniseries Great Expectations (1989), The Old Curiosity Shop (1994), The Apocalypse Watch (1997), In The Beginning (2000). Other miniseries include Kidnapped (1995), Coming Home (1998), David Copperfield (2000, with director Peter Medak), Victoria And Albert (2001).
The Exiles, Journey to Where, The Seance Spectre
Born 1931, died 2008
Donald James was the penname of Donald James Wheal. He wrote two autiobiographies which describe his early life: World’s End (2005) recounts his childhood in London in the late 1930s and early 1940s, White City (2007) continues the story of his family in post-War Britain. In 1964, he contributed a script for the ITV police series No Hiding Place, his breakthrough into writing for TV drama series.
James wrote episodes of The Saint (1968), The Champions (1968), Department S (1969), Randall & Hopkirk Deceased (1969), UFO (1970, uncredited series script editor), The Persuaders (1971), The Protectors (1972), and The Adventurer (1972). For Anderson, James cowrote the Anderson film Doppelganger (1969). As well as ITC series, he also wrote for The Avengers (1968), and a 1970 episode of the American series Mission Impossible.
UK TV companies lost interest in adventure series in the late 1970s, so James turned to thriller novels, beginning with A Spy at Evening (1977). His best-selling thrillers include The Fall Of The Russian Empire (1983), Monstrum (1997) and Vadim (2000). His last novel was Walking the Shadows (2003). He has also written several books with Tony Barwick (as James Barwick): Shadow of the Wolf (1978), The Hangman's Crusade (1981), The Devil at the Crossroads (1986), Kremlin Contract (1988). As well as his two autobiographies, other nonfiction includes The Penguin Dictionary of the Third Reich (new edition 2002, with James Taylor and Warren Shaw).
A science fiction writer and friend of Johnny Byrne, married to Regina von Kesslann (who gave her name to Regina Kesslann in Another Time, Another Place). He was born in 1949 in the USA, but raised in Britain. He wrote stories for Science Fantasy and New Worlds magazines. His first novel was All Night Stand, followed by Second Coming. He died in 1995.
Born in 1910, Lasky was the son of American pioneer producer Jesse Lasky. He became a screenwriter in Hollywood in the 1930s, writing scripts of the films Union Pacific (1939), Unconquered (1948), Samson and Delilah (1949), The Ten Commandments (1956) and Seven Women From Hell (1961). In World War 2 he served in the army. In the late 1950s he and his third wife, the actress and writer Pat Silver, moved to London, writing for television and film, including The Protectors, Marlowe- Private Eye (1984) and Hammer House Of Mystery & Suspense (1984). A small bearded man, Lasky was an accomplished swordsman, rider, tennis player, and an authority on weaponry and the wild west. His memoirs, Whatever Happened To Hollywood?, were published in 1973. He died in 1985.
Script editor (credited, but actually he did not on these scripts) Breakaway, A Matter Of Life And Death, Another Time, Another Place, Guardian Of Piri
Johnny Byrne on Edward di Lorenzo: Ed wrote Missing Link and Ring Around The Moon, but they were heavily rewritten by Chris [Penfold]. Wonderful man though he was, and a writer with a delicate touch and philosophical feel, Ed had problems with the type of story needed for Space at the time. His great love was the book he was writing. I think it was called White Light, and like his script work, it was poetic, delicate, a sort of post hippy Jonathan Livingstone Seagull (Chris's description). According to Chris, Ed left because he was fed up with the rewrite demands, and, anyhow, his book was his first priority. I was very sad and disappointed when he left because I felt he would have grown into the series and thus make it all the more special.
Miles was born in Wales in 1940, but has lived in the West Midlands most of his life, and much of his work is based there. He read history at Oxford, and has written plays for TV, radio and stage. He wrote episodes of The Adventures Of Don Quick (1970), Edward VII (1975), Lillie (1978), and Disraelli (1979), and novelisations of the TV series Crossroads, Marco Polo (1983) and We'll Meet Again (1987). He has written over 40 books, many of them historical mysteries as well as fiction and nonfiction books about sport. Miles uses both his own name and the pen name Edward Marston.
An American writer who produced an early unfilmed script for the series. Other credits include the Barbara Bain TV movie The Obsessive Doctor (1992).
Story consultant on Year 1 up to End of Eternity
Born the son of a vicar in Bristol and educated at Cambridge University, Penfold joined Australia's ABC, becoming a writer and producer in radio and TV. He returned to England to work in industrial documentaries, before becoming story editor on the series The Pathfinder. He wrote the Cliff Richard film Take Me High (1973). In 1985 he wrote the second series of The Tripods. He was script editor of One by One (1987), and All Creatures Great And Small (1988), writing scripts for the latter into 1990. He wrote episodes for the top British soap EastEnders (1990) and Casualty (1990). In 2002-3 he was script editor on Midsomer Murders.
His father-in-law at the time had worked for the British rocket programme.
FAB 33 (interviewed in 1997): I was certainly interested in the idea of making popular the kind of science fiction which dealt unashamedly with metaphysical ideas. And in the first series of Space 1999 a lot of episodes, not all of them, but a lot of them, confronted some of those issues head on. I think they made very good programmes.
As the series developed, the increasing concerns of ITC for a kind of science fiction which I felt very alien to me began to have the effect of undermining the scripts which were being written. We had very good scripts which had to go back to the drawing board to meet a requirement which had come from Abe Mandell, who didn't appear to have any understanding that if you take one strand out of a script, it effects everything else in the script. So a lot of rewriting, needless rewriting, went on and this had the effect of bringing the scripts further and further behind schedule. The difficulties eventually came to a head and Gerry asked me to leave the series. I don't remember having any severe falling out with him, but I realised the way the wind was blowing as far as story content was concerned and I was, at that point, utterly exhausted anyway.
(Interviewed in 2002): Space fiction stories are mainly thought of as action adventure. What we were engaged in Space 1999 was of course action adventure, but it was also ideas adventure. We weren't afraid of big ideas in series one, it was what drove us on day to day, it gave us a huge sense of excitement.
Ronder wrote many episodes of Survivors (1975-76).
Born Glasgow, 1926, died 1999. Although credited as "Lew Schwartz" on Space 1999, his surname is spelt "Schwarz" without a "t". A comedy writer, he worked on The Army Game (1957), The Liver Birds (1971), Carry on Laughing! (1975)
Actress and writer wife of Jesse Lasky Jnr.
Born in 1932, Spooner was a gag writer who entered TV in comedy. His first scripts were for Anderson's Supercar, but were unused, but he contributed to Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds, and he served as writer and story consultant on The Avengers (1961-68), Dr Who (1964, becoming story editor until 1965), The Champions (1966), Man In A Suitcase (1967, co-creator), Department S (1968), Randall and Hopkirk Deceased (1969, creator), Doomwatch, UFO (1969), Jason King (1971),"The Protectors, The Adventurer (1972), The New Avengers (1976-77), The Professionals (1977-78), Hammer House Of Mystery & Suspense (1984).
The Avengers (1962), The Return Of The Saint (1978)
Wallace co created and wrote for the series Dark Shadows (1966-67), and wrote episodes of The Invaders (1967), Star Trek (episodes Obsession, 1967, and Assignment Earth, 1968), and The Planet Of The Apes (1974).
Weir was the main writer on The Onedian Line (1974-78). He also wrote for The Troubleshooters/ Mogul (1966-70) and anglicised the Japanese series The Water Margin (1978).
Winder wrote episodes of The Saint (1966), The Avengers (1967), Ace Of Wands (1971) and cowrote the Canadian film Welcome To Blood City (1977).
Pen name of producer Fred Freiberger
Copyright Martin Willey