Gilbert Ralston

{{Infobox person

|name=Gilbert Ralston

|birth_name=Gilbert Alexander Ralston

|birth_date={{birth date|1912|1|5}}

|birth_place=Newcastle, Ireland

|death_date={{death date and age|1999|3|18|1912|1|5}}

|death_place=Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, United States

|occupation=Screenwriter

}}

Gilbert Alexander Ralston (January 5, 1912 – March 18, 1999) was a British-American screenwriter,{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/1111893/Gilbert-Ralston/filmography|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111231647/http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/1111893/Gilbert-Ralston/filmography|url-status=dead|archive-date=2014-01-11|department=Movies & TV Dept.|work=The New York Times|publisher=Baseline & All Movie Guide|date=2014|title=Gilbert Ralston}} journalist and author. He was a television producer in the 1950s and a screenwriter in the 1960s. He created the television series The Wild Wild West and wrote scripts for Star Trek, Gunsmoke, Ben Casey, I Spy, Hawaii Five-O and Naked City. He wrote the screenplay for the 1971 movie Willard,{{cite web|work=The New York Times|title=Willard (1971) Screen: Affinity for Rats:Davison Plays Lead in Horror Film 'Willard'|authorlink=Vincent Canby|first=Vincent|last=Canby|date=June 19, 1971|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D01EEDE1238EF34BC4152DFB066838A669EDE}} which was based on the 1968 novel Ratman's Notebooks written by Stephen Gilbert.

Early life and career

Ralston was born in 1912 in Newcastle, Ireland.

In the 1950s he worked as a television producer in the United States. In the 1960s, he worked as a television screenwriter, according to the IMDb website. Willard was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1972 for Best Motion Picture.

He died on March 18, 1999, in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, of congestive heart failure.

Television screenwriter

Ralston was a screenwriter for many of the top television shows in the United States in the 1960s. He wrote the script for the 1967 Star Trek episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?", which is a line from Adonais (1821), the elegiac poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. He also wrote scripts for Ben Casey, Laredo, I Spy, The Big Valley, Gunsmoke, The Naked City, Combat, Hawaii Five-O and The Wild Wild West He also wrote short stories.

''The Wild Wild West''

Ralston helped create the television series The Wild Wild West and wrote the pilot episode, "The Night of the Inferno". In 1997, at the age of 85, Ralston sued Warner Brothers over the upcoming motion picture based on the series (Wild Wild West was released in 1999). In a deposition, Ralston explained that, in 1964, he was approached by producer Michael Garrison, who '"said he had an idea for a series, good commercial idea, and wanted to know if I could glue the idea of a western hero and a James Bond type together in the same show."The New York Times, 8 July 1999

Ralston said he then created the Civil War characters, the format, the story outline and nine drafts of the script that was the basis for the television series. It was his idea, for example, to have a secret agent named Jim West who would perform secret missions for U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.

Ralston's experience brought to light a common Hollywood practice of the 1950s and 1960s, where television writers who helped create popular series allowed producers or studios to take credit for said series, thus depriving the writers of any royalties.

Outcome of court case

Ralston died in 1999 before his lawsuit was settled. Warner Brothers ended up paying Ralston's family between $600,000 and $1.5 million.The Wall Street Journal, 15 July 2005

Filmography

=Films=

Year	Film	Credit	Notes
class="wikitable"
1968 \|Kona Coast \|Written by \|
rowspan=2\|1971 \|The Hunting Party \|Written by \|
Willard \|Screenplay by \|based on the novel Ratman's Notebooks by Stephen Gilbert
1972 \|Ben \|Written by \|based on characters created by Stephen Gilbert
1976 \|Special Delivery \|Written by \|

=Television=

class="wikitable"
Year	TV series	Credit	Notes
1952-53 \|Your Jeweler's Showcase \|Producer \|28 episodes
1952-54 \|Cavalcade of America \|Producer \|14 episodes
1953 \|General Electric Theater \|Producer \|12 episodes
1955-57 \|Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion \|Producer, Executive Producer \|37 episodes
1957 \|High Adventure with Lowell Thomas \|Producer \|
1961 \|Bus Stop \|Writer \|1 episode
1961-62 \|Naked City \|Writer \|7 episodes
1961-64 \|Ben Casey \|Writer \|16 episodes
rowspan=2\|1962 \|Route 66 \|Writer \|1 episode
Target: The Corruptors! \|Writer \|1 episode
1962-63 \|The Untouchables \|Writer \|2 episodes
rowspan=2\|1963 \|Alcoa Premiere \|Writer \|1 episode
Wide Country \|Writer \|1 episode
rowspan=2\|1964 \|The Richard Boone Show \|Writer \|1 episode
Suspense \|Producer \|1 episode
rowspan=8\|1965 \|Alfred Hitchcock Presents \|Writer \|1 episode
Burke's Law \|Writer \|1 episode
Gunsmoke \|Writer \|1 episode
I Spy \|Writer \|2 episodes
Mr. Novak \|Writer \|1 episode
Slattery's People \|Writer \|1 episode
The Wild Wild West \|Writer \|1 episode
12 O'Clock High \|Writer \|1 episode
rowspan=2\|1966 \|Combat! \|Writer \|1 episode
Laredo \|Writer \|1 episode
1966-67 \|The Big Valley \|Writer \|3 episodes
rowspan=3\|1967 \|Insight \|Writer \|1 episode
Iron Horse \|Writer \|2 episodes
Star Trek \|Writer \|1 episode
1967-68 \|Gentle Ben \|Writer \|5 episodes
1968 \|Land of the Giants \|Writer \|1 episode
rowspan=2\|1969 \|Hawaii Five-O \|Writer \|1 episode
The Name of the Game \|Writer \|1 episode
1971 \|O'Hara, U.S. Treasury \|Writer \|2 episodes
1972 \|Nichols \|Writer \|1 episode

class="wikitable"

Year

TV series

Credit

Notes

1952-53

|Your Jeweler's Showcase

|Producer

|28 episodes

1952-54

|Cavalcade of America

|Producer