Terry Southern

Longtime companion of actress Gail Gerber whose stage name was Gail Gilmore. She documented her 30 years together with the writer in her award-winning 2010 memoir Trippin' with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember.

With legitimate film work increasingly elusive, Terry taught Screenwriting at both NYU and Columbia University from the late 80s until his death in 1995.

His last novel, "Texas Summer", was released by Arcade Books in 1992. His novels "The Magic Christian", "Flash and Filigree", "Blue Movie" and "Candy" are available through Grove Atlantic.

Was member of the dramatic jury at the Sundance Film Festival in 1988.

He was visiting his friend Rip Torn on location in New Mexico for The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and was roped into an uncredited cameo as a reporter at Newton's space launch.

He was hired in the early-eighties by Michael O'Donoghue to write for Saturday Night Live (1975), and wrote "The Telephone" (1986) with singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson.

After the publication of the novel "Blue Movie" (1970), he turned to screenwriting full-time, working on original scripts, adaptations and speculative assignments throughout the 70s and 80s. During this difficult period, when films and "quality-lit" (a phrase he coined) moved from character-driven stories to action-packed blockbuster, the IRS repeatedly attempted to reclaim over $150,000 in unpaid taxes owed from the mid-sixties.

Terry helped inaugurate the independent film movement by co-authoring Easy Rider (1969) and writing and co-producing The End of the Road (1976) with his old Paris/Greenwich Village hipster soulmate Aram Avakian - filmed entirely on-location in the Berkshires with Actors Studio cast and a non-union crew (including James Earl Jones, Stacy Keach and Gordon Willis).

A rewarding period in Hollywood followed, including screenplays for the films The Loved One (1965), The Collector (1965), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Casino Royale (1967) and Barbarella (1968).

Strangelove" screenplay (1964).

Terry published numerous short stories in England, France and America, (anthologized in "Red Dirt Marijuana and Other Tastes"), and co-edited "Writers in Revolt; an Anthology of the Most Controversial Writing in the World Today" (1962) with Alex Trocchi and Richard Seaver. After settling in an old farmhouse in Connecticut, Terry began contributing regularly to Esquire Magazine. One of his assignments was to interview director Stanley Kubrick, who subsequently invited him to employ his satirical skills on the "Dr.

Terry Southern began writing satirical, outrageous fiction at the age of 12, when he took it upon himself to rewrite various Edgar Allan Poe stories "because they didn't go far enough". After serving as a lieutenant in the army in World War II, he began writing short stories in earnest while studying at the Sorbonne. "The Accident", published in the premier issue of The Paris Review, was the first short story to appear in that magazine. According to Peter Matthiessen, "The Sun and the Stillborn Stars", also by Terry, determined the course of The Paris Review as a venue for short fiction. He admired and befriended influential British novelist Henry Green, who convinced Andre Deutsch to publish his first novel, "Flash and Filigree" (1958).

Residing with his first wife Carol in Geneva, he spent days conjuring surrealistic exploits for billionaire trickster Guy Grand in "The Magic Christian" (1958) while at the same time writing Candy (1958) for Maurice Girodias' Olympia Press. He and Gregory Corso presented William Burroughs' beat masterwork "Naked Lunch" to Girodias, convincing him to publish it.