Tony Williamson (television writer)

Infobox Person
name = Tony Williamson

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birth_date = 18 December 1932
birth_place = flagicon|United Kingdomflagicon|EnglandManchester, England
United Kingdom
death_date = 19 June 1991
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occupation = Television screenwriter
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children =

Tony Williamson (b. Manchester 18 December 1932, d. 19 June 1991) was a prolific British television writer, most active from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. He wrote primarily for the action-adventure and espionage genres. Perhaps because of his early involvement in"The Avengers", he often found work on shows that featured fantasy adventure, rather than the kitchen sink realism that had arisen in Britain at the start of his career. Series with extraordinary lead characters in unusual circumstances, such as "Department S", "Jason King", "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)" and "The Adventurer", dominated his output.

He has been credited with creating the short-lived dramas "Intrigue" [http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/overview6.htm "A to Z of TV". television.co.uk.] and "Counterstrike", as well as being a key player in the development of "Adam Adamant Lives!".

Career

Williamson's writing career has its roots in his obligatory national service as a young man. While in the Royal Air Force, he began a life-long association with fellow airman, Dennis Spooner, by writing some amateur efforts. After the war, he accepted a position as a news correspondent for CBS in Canada. On the side, he wrote at least twenty stage plays that were later produced on various anthological television programmes [http://www.ben.haughton.btinternet.co.uk/castlists/biogs/williamson.htm Haughton, Ben. "Tony Williamson". Adam Adamant Lives! The Unnoficial Homepage] .

When he returned to Britain, he flirted with soap operas like "Coronation Street" [ http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/1136020/credits.html BFI's credit list for "Coronation Street" in the 1960s.] and "Compact". However, by the mid-1960s, he embarked upon his career of writing spy fiction with the sale of a script to "The Mask of Janus". Though he also contributed to its spin-off, "The Spies", Williamson swiftly moved on to a more fantastic espionage setting with his first sale to "The Avengers" in 1965. He wrote a few more scripts for the Emma Peel era before being tapped by Sydney Newman to script edit "Adam Adamant Lives!" When Newman cancelled that show, he returned to "The Avengers", for which he was a dominant writer of the show's Peel-less final season.

Following the demise of "The Avengers", he worked on a number of programmes on which Dennis Spooner held some measure of creative control as creator or story editor. Projects like "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)", "The Champions", and "Department S" all came to accept his script submissions following "Adamant!". His initial sale to "Department S" was particularly significant in that it began a series of sales involving the character of Jason King, the lead in two programmes in the early 1970s. His final script using the spy, "Jason King"'s "A Page Before Dying", would mark the passage of Williamson's longest association with a single fictional character.

After heart surgery in 1980, Williamson deliberately slowed his output. However, he was the dominant contributor to the 1986 supernatural series, "Worlds Beyond" [http://www.ben.haughton.btinternet.co.uk/castlists/biogs/williamson.htm Haughton, Ben. "Tony Williamson". "Adam Adamant Lives! The Unofficial Homepage"] .

Williamson died during a second heart procedure in 1991, soon after his third film, a minor Roger Moore vehicle called "Fire, Ice & Dynamite", opened in West Germany.

External links

*imdb name|0932168|Tony Williamson

References