Elliott Baker
| 15 Dec 1922 | Buffalo - New York - USA
• 204 views • 0 thumbs up • 0 thumbs down
Death date: 9 Feb 2007
Biography
From Wikipedia
Elliott Baker (December 15, 1922 – February 9, 2007), born
Elliot Joseph Cohen, was a screenwriter and novelist.
Baker was born in Buffalo, New York, and graduated from
Indiana University. He was the author of the comic novel A Fine Madness, which
was published in 1964 by G.P. Putnam's Sons. He adapted the novel into a 1966
motion picture starring Sean Connery and Joanne Woodward. A Fine Madness tells the story of Samson Shillitoe, a
rebellious poet in Greenwich Village who battles a psychiatrist seeking to curb
his mood swings via psychosurgery. The New York Times Book Review called the
novel "a masterpiece of what one might call rebellious farce."
His other novels included Pocock & Pitt (Putnam, 1971);
Klynt's Law (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1976); And We Were Young (Times
Books, 1979); and Unhealthful Air (Viking, 1988). His novel The Penny Wars
(Putnam, 1968) was adapted for the Broadway stage.
As a screenwriter he wrote a number of television movies,
and was nominated for an Emmy award in 1976 for his adaptation of The
Entertainer. He also wrote "Side Show", the most famous episode of
Roald Dahl's 1961 television anthology horror series Way Out, which featured a
carnival "electric woman with a light bulb for a head."