Hollywood Breakthrough: Harlan Ellison

The Wrap has a feature called “Hollywood Breakthrough,” where people who work in the entertainment industry describe how they got their big break. At present, there are five featured screenwriters, perfect for a five-part series, one per day this week.

Today’s featured writer is Harlan Ellison, whose writing credits include the movie The Terminator (1984) and many TV episodes including “Route 66” (1 episode, 1963), “Burke’s Law” (4 episodes, 1963–1964), “The Outer Limits” (2 episodes, 1964), “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (2 episodes, 1966–1967) and the original “Star Trek” (1 episode, 1967). Here is an excerpt from his first-person remembrance of how he broke into Hollywood:

I had no agent in town, but fortunately my literary agent in New York, Bob Mills, was associated with the huge talent agency, GAC, that was owned by Universal. At GAC there were two people Bob knew from New York, because they had been in publishing there. One of them was Malcolm Stuart, who with Otto Preminger’s brother Ingo had the Preminger-Stuart Agency, and they had sold themselves to GAC.

So, I was a legacy to Malcolm and Ingo by way of Bob Mills, but I had never met them, I had never pitched a script, I had never seen a script.

I call GAC and I get an underling, Malcolm’s personal secretary or whatever, and I say, “This is Harlan Ellison’s personal secretary. I believe Mr. Robert Mills has called, and Mr. Stuart is expecting a call from Mr. Ellison.”

So Malcolm Stuart gets on, and I say, “Mr. Stuart? Will you please hold for Mr. Harlan Ellison?” I now put the phone to my chest, wait three beats, come back on and say, “Malcolm? Harlan. Well, I guess Bob told you that I was expanding and going into film now, and he thought GAC and I would be a good marriage. Could you send a car for me?”

To find out the end of the story, go here. And here’s a clip from one of Ellison’s episodes from “The Outer Limits,” starring Robert Culp:

Man, I loved that show when I was a kid.

Comment Archive