Michael Wilson (July 1, 1914 – April 9, 1978) was an American screenwriter.
Life and career
Early life
Wilson was born and raised Roman Catholic in McAlester, Oklahoma. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1936 and did post-graduate fellowship work between 1937 and 1939.[1][2] He taught English and began his writing career with short stories for magazines. Then, starting in 1941, he wrote or co-wrote 22 screenplays.
Wilson was named an unfriendly witness by the House Un-American Activities Committee and blacklisted for being a communist. After he was blacklisted, he left for France and worked on scripts for the European film industry.
His screenplay for Friendly Persuasion was nominated for an Academy Award, but was disqualified because his name did not appear in the credits. Director William Wyler wanted his brother, Robert Wyler, and Jessamyn West credited for rewriting the script, but Wilson disputed this. Wyler then was able under the rules of the blacklist to have one of the few films in history credited to no writer at all.
Wilson and Carl Foreman worked separately on The Bridge on the River Kwai, but as both were blacklisted, the official credit went to Pierre Boulle, upon whose novel the movie was based, even though Boulle did not even speak English.
Wilson remained in France with his family for nine years, before returning to live in Ojai, California in the United States in 1964.[2]
Return to Hollywood
Wilson continued to write screenplays, including for The Sandpiper (1965), Planet of the Apes (1968), and Che! (1969). His screenplay for Planet of the Apes was based on a novel by Pierre Boulle. The adaptation was credited to Wilson and Rod Serling. Although most of Serling's story was rejected, his famous twist ending was retained.
Michael Wilson was awarded Writers Guild of America's Laurel Award in 1975 and was posthumously awarded his second Academy Award in 1984 for The Bridge on the River Kwai.[4]
Wilson also completed an unproduced screenplay on December 16, 1976, The Raid On Harper's Ferry, which was an adaptation of Truman J. Nelson's book The Old Man: John Brown at Harper's Ferry (1973). He also apparently wrote unproduced scripts for a movie about the Industrial Workers of the World titled The Wobblies and a movie about the infiltration of the Black Liberation Movement titled Quiet Darkness.
^"Here and There," Berkeley Daily Gazette (June 23, 1941): 3, social page mentions the couple's recent wedding.
Further reading
Caballero, Raymond. McCarthyism vs. Clinton Jencks. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.
Planet of the Apes (Magazine) #2, October 1974. P. 48–52, "Michael Wilson: The Other Apes Writer," by David Johnson. An exclusive interview with the co-author of the original Planet of the Apes movie.