Actors - Harlan Ellison

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Harlan Jay Ellison (born May 27, 1934) is a prolific American writer of short stories, novellas, essays and criticism. His literary and television work has received many awards. He wrote for the original series of The Outer Limits and Star Trek, edited the multiple award-winning short story anthology series Dangerous Visions and served as creative consultant to the science fiction TV series The Twilight Zone (1980s version) and Babylon 5.

A great deal of Ellison's career has been spent within the science fiction genre and community. His most famous stories have been published within that genre, and he has won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards. He was also very active in the science fiction community (he was a founder of the Cleveland Science Fiction Society and edited its fanzine as a teenager) and gives colorful and confrontational talks at science fiction conventions.

Ellison's fantasy work, however, is usually better aligned with surrealism or magical realism than space opera-type science fiction. There is also a strong ethical current that runs through his work, half of which is nonfiction, which includes social activism and criticism of the arts.

He is fiercely protective of his work and has sought (and won) legal action against copyright infringements.

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Biography

Ellison was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His Jewish-American family subsequently moved to Painesville, Ohio, but returned to Cleveland in 1949 following the death of Ellison's father. Ellison frequently ran away from home, taking odd jobs — including by the time he was eighteen, by his own account, "a tuna fisherman off the coast of Galveston, itinerant crop-picker down in New Orleans, hired gun for a wealthy neurotic, dynamite truck driver in North Carolina, short order cook, cab driver, lithographer, book salesman, floorwalker in a department store, door-to-door brush salesman, and spent ten years as an actor (off and on) with the Cleveland Play House".

Ellison briefly attended Ohio State University before dropping out. In 1955, Ellison moved to New York City to pursue a writing career, primarily in science fiction. Over the next two years, Ellison published more than 100 short stories and articles.

In 1957, Ellison decided to write about youth gangs. To research the issue, he joined a street gang in the Red Hook, Brooklyn area, under the name "Cheech Beldone". His subsequent writings on the subject include the novel Web of the City/Rumble and the collection The Deadly Streets, and comprise part of his memoir Memos from Purgatory.

Ellison was drafted into the army and served from 1957 to 1959. Afterwards, living in Chicago, Illinois, Ellison edited Rogue magazine. As a book editor at Regency Books, Ellison published novels and anthologies by such writers as B. Traven, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Bloch and Philip José Farmer.

Also, early in his career, in the late '50s, he wrote a number of soft porn stories, such as "God Bless the Ugly Virgin" and "Tramp", later reprinted in Los Angeles based girlie journals. This was the beginning of his use of the Cordwainer Bird pseudonym. This name was later used in July and August of 1957, in two journals each of which had accepted two of his stories. In each journal, one story was published with author Harlan Ellison, the other with author Cordwainer Bird. Later, as discussed in the Controversy section below, the pseudonym was used on material by him with which the editing of or use of he disagreed.

He moved to California in 1962, and subsequently began to sell scripts to such television shows as Burke's Law, Route 66, The Outer Limits, Star Trek and Cimarron Strip. His Memos from Purgatory was adapted into an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Ellison's scripts "Demon with a Glass Hand" (for The Outer Limits) and "The City on the Edge of Forever" (for Star Trek) won Best Original Teleplay awards from the Writers Guild of America; both are often cited as one of the best of their respective series.

During the late 1960s, Ellison wrote a column about television for the Los Angeles Free Press. Titled "The Glass Teat", the column addressed political and social issues and their portrayal on television at the time. The columns have been reprinted in two collections, The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat.

He continued to publish short pieces, fiction and nonfiction, in various publications, and some of his most famous stories were written in this period. "'Repent, Harlequin!' said the Ticktockman" is a celebration of civil disobedience against repressive authority. "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is an allegory of Hell, where five humans are tormented by an all-knowing computer throughout eternity. "A Boy and his Dog" examines the nature of friendship and love in a violent, post-Apocalypse world. It was made into the film A Boy and His Dog
in 1975 starring Don Johnson.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Harlan Ellison ]

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Actors - Harlan Ellison

Biography

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