Ernest Tidyman

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Ernest Tidyman January 1 1928 July 14 1984 was a Clevelandborn American author and screenwriter best known for his novels featuring the AfricanAmerican detective John Shaft He also cowrote the screenplay for the film version of Shaft with John DF Black in 1971 His screenplay for The French Connection garnered him an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as well as a Golden Globe Award a Writers Guild of America Award and an Edgar Award He also wrote the screenplay for the 1973 film High Plains Drifter which was directed by Clint Eastwood who was also its star Tidyman also wrote the sequel to Shaft Shafts Big Score which appeared in theaters in 1972 In 1974 he published Dummy a nonfiction account of the story of an accused deafmute murderer It was nominated for an Edgar in the Fact Crime category He cowrote A Force of One in 1979 one of Chuck Norriss earlier films Thereafter Tidyman never attained the kind of success he enjoyed with The French Connection and the Shaft series although he had a high note in 1980 with his teleplay for the TV movie Guyana Tragedy The Story of Jim Jones which he also had a hand in producing which garnered him an Emmy nomination For creating the Shaft books he became one of the few white individuals to win an NAACP Image Award Tidyman married Susan Gould and fathered two children Adam and Nicholas Gould passed a few years later In 1982 he married former Motown soul singer Chris Clark who had cowritten the screenplay for Lady Sings the Blues 1972 He died two years later from a perforated ulcer Description above from the Wikipedia article Ernest Tidyman licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia