Paul Erickson

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For the baseball player, see Paul Erickson (MLB pitcher)

Paul Erickson (November 22, 1920 - October 27, 1991) was a Welsh scriptwriter, most active in the 1950s and 1960s. He contributed generally single episodes to a wide variety of British television shows, most typically of the crime drama genre, although he did occasionally generate science-fiction scripts. In the 1950s, he would have generally been considered a B-film or telemovie writer, offering theatrical audiences such work as Track the Man Down, Secret Venture^[1], and Three Steps to the Gallows^[2]. By the 1960s, however, his work was almost exclusively for episodic and anthologic television. He sold three scripts for the third season of The Saint, adapted William Tenn's short story, "Time in Advance", for Out of the Unknown, wrote The Ark for Doctor Who, and contributed to The Inside Man^[3] and Paul Temple^[4].

He was briefly married to Lesley Scott, who received screen credit for co-writing The Ark, but contributed nothing to the scripts^[5].

Since many Doctor Who novelizations were not written by the original scriptwriter, it is significant to Doctor Who fans that he wrote The Ark for Target Books^[6].

[edit] References and external links

Paul Erickson at the Internet Movie Database

1. ^ IMDB's listing for Secret Venture
2. ^ IMDB's listing for Three Steps to the Gallows
3. ^ IMDB's listing for The Inside Man
4. ^ IMDB's listing for Paul Temple
5. ^ On Target's biographical sketch of Erickson
6. ^ On Target's entry for The Ark