Hey folks, Harry here with the first of two really sad obits for the day. I was lucky enough to meet Joseph Stefano and have him introduce a screening of PSYCHO a few years back - and he was quite the character. Here's Uncapie with our goodbye...
Joseph Stefano, producer of the classic televison series, "The Outer Limits"
and script writer for the the film based on Robert Bloch's novel, "Psycho,"
has passed away at the age of 84.
Mr. Stefano was from South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he graduated high
school in 1940 and went to New York to become an entertainer. He was well
skilled in palying the piano, singing, dancing and wrote music and lyrics. In
1953, while toruing with a troupe, he met his future wife at of all things a
jukebox where she was trying to decide what to play. Mr. Stefano stepped in and
said, "Play that one. I wrote it." The rest was history.
Mr. Stefano became a script writer for the "Ted Mack Family Hour" and
developed a number of scripts, one of which, "The Black Orchid," that became a movie
in 1958 wth Anthony Quinn and Sophia Loren.
In 1959, Mr. Stefano got a contract writing at 20 Century Fox and his work
caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock who had him adapt the book "Psycho" to
the screen. Mr. Stefano created the whole back story of Marion Crane stealing
the $40,000 from her boss and being murdered in the now immortal, shower
scene.
Of course, there was the classic, "The Outer Limits" television series which
was some of the best television ever created. A pilot Mr. Stefano created,
"The Unknown," was a spin-off of the series but, sadly, it never interested the
networks. Instead, it was incorporated as an episode to the "Outer Limits"
entitled, "The Forms Of Things Unknown" with David McCallum and Barbara Rush.
One of the more obscure but, strange films he had scripted was a movie
called, "Futz!" about a man who falls in love with a pig(!!!!) that featured future
stars, Frederic Forrest, Sally Kirkland, Jennifer O'Neill and a then unknown
cinematographer named, Vilmos Zsigmond.
Many thanks to a man who gave our childhood exciting visions of weird futures
and strange presents, our televisions are now...dark.
Uncapie
