Ben Roberts (writer)
| Ben Roberts | |
|---|---|
|
Roberts on New Years Day 1980 | |
| Born |
March 23, 1916 Brooklyn, New York |
| Died |
May 12, 1984 (aged 68) Los Angeles, California |
| Occupation | Film and television writer and producer |
| Years active | 1942-1984 |
Benjamin Eisenberg Roberts (March 23, 1916 – May 12, 1984) was a film and television writer, producer and one of the creators of the Charlie's Angels and Time Express television series'. In 1958 he was nominated for an Academy Award for writing the Lon Chaney biopic Man of a Thousand Faces. He has also been nominated for two Emmy awards and an Edgar Award. In 1972, Roberts won a Golden Globe Award for Best Television series, drama for Mannix.
Ben Roberts entered New York University at age 16, graduating three years later. By the time he was 22, Roberts was successfully running his own independent public-relations counseling firm and was contributing comedy material to several Broadway musicals. In 1941, he collaborated with another young writer, Ivan Goff, on the theatrical suspense thriller Portrait in Black. He briefly worked in films in the early 1940s, returned to the stage for six years, then settled in Hollywood permanently in 1949. All of his subsequent film efforts, as both screenwriter and producer, were in collaboration with his old friend Ivan Goff. The pair contributed to the success of such varied projects as White Heat (1949), Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951), Shake Hands with the Devil (1959) and Midnight Lace (1960); and in 1957, they shared an Academy Award nomination for their scriptwork on Man of a Thousand Faces (1957). Ben Roberts and Ivan Goff were also executive producers for the weekly television series Mannix and Nero Wolfe.[1]