{{short description|American screenwriter}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person |name=Gilbert Ralston |birth_name=Gilbert Alexander Ralston |birth_date={{birth date|1912|1|5}} |birth_place=Newcastle, Co.Down, Ireland |death_date={{death date and age|1999|3|18|1912|1|5}} |death_place=Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, United States |occupation=Screenwriter }}
'''Gilbert Alexander Ralston''' (January 5, 1912 – March 18, 1999) was a British-American screenwriter,<ref name=NYT>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/1111893/Gilbert-Ralston/filmography|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111231647/http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/1111893/Gilbert-Ralston/filmography|url-status=dead|archive-date=2014-01-11|department=Movies & TV Dept.|work=The New York Times|publisher=Baseline & All Movie Guide|date=2014|title=Gilbert Ralston}}</ref> journalist and author. He was a television producer in the 1950s and a screenwriter in the 1960s. He created the television series ''The Wild Wild West'' and wrote scripts for ''Star Trek'', ''Gunsmoke'', ''Ben Casey'', ''I Spy'',<ref name=NYT/> ''Hawaii Five-O'' and ''Naked City''. He wrote the screenplay for the 1971 movie ''Willard'',<ref name=NYT2>{{cite web|work=The New York Times|title=Willard (1971) Screen: Affinity for Rats:Davison Plays Lead in Horror Film 'Willard'|authorlink=Vincent Canby|first=Vincent|last=Canby|date=June 19, 1971|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D01EEDE1238EF34BC4152DFB066838A669EDE}}</ref> which was based on the 1968 novel ''Ratman's Notebooks'' written by Stephen Gilbert.<ref name=NYT2/>
==Early life and career== Ralston was born in 1912 in Newcastle, County Down, Ireland
In the 1950s he worked as a television producer in the United States. In the 1960s, he worked as a television screenwriter, according to the IMDb website. ''Willard'' was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1972 for Best Motion Picture.
He died on March 18, 1999, in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, of congestive heart failure.
==Television screenwriter== Ralston was a screenwriter for many of the top television shows in the United States in the 1960s. He wrote the script for the 1967 ''Star Trek'' episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?", which is a line from ''Adonais'' (1821), the elegiac poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. He also wrote scripts for ''Ben Casey'', ''Laredo'', ''I Spy,'' ''The Big Valley'', ''Gunsmoke'', ''The Naked City'', ''Combat'', ''Hawaii Five-O'' and ''The Wild Wild West'' He also wrote short stories.
==''The Wild Wild West''== Ralston helped create the television series ''The Wild Wild West'' and wrote the pilot episode, "The Night of the Inferno". In 1997, at the age of 85, Ralston sued Warner Brothers over the upcoming motion picture based on the series (''Wild Wild West'' was released in 1999). In a deposition, Ralston explained that, in 1964, he was approached by producer Michael Garrison, who '"said he had an idea for a series, good commercial idea, and wanted to know if I could glue the idea of a western hero and a James Bond type together in the same show."<ref>''The New York Times'', 8 July 1999</ref>
Ralston said he then created the Civil War characters, the format, the story outline and nine drafts of the script that was the basis for the television series. It was his idea, for example, to have a secret agent named Jim West who would perform secret missions for U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.
Ralston's experience brought to light a common Hollywood practice of the 1950s and 1960s, where television writers who helped create popular series allowed producers or studios to take credit for said series, thus depriving the writers of any royalties.
==Outcome of court case== Ralston died in 1999 before his lawsuit was settled. Warner Brothers ended up paying Ralston's family between $600,000 and $1.5 million.<ref>''The Wall Street Journal'', 15 July 2005</ref>
==Filmography==
===Films=== {| class="wikitable" |- ! Year !! Film !! Credit !! Notes |- | 1968 |''Kona Coast'' |Written by | |- | rowspan=2|1971 |''The Hunting Party'' |Written by | |- |''Willard'' |Screenplay by |based on the novel ''Ratman's Notebooks'' by Stephen Gilbert |- | 1972 |''Ben'' |Written by |based on characters created by Stephen Gilbert |- | 1976 |''Special Delivery'' |Written by | |- |}
===Television=== {| class="wikitable" |- ! Year !! TV series !! Credit !! Notes |- | 1952–53 |''Your Jeweler's Showcase'' |Producer |28 episodes |- | 1952–54 |''Cavalcade of America'' |Producer |14 episodes |- | 1953 |''General Electric Theater'' |Producer |12 episodes |- | 1955–57 |''Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion'' |Producer, Executive Producer |37 episodes |- | 1957 |''High Adventure with Lowell Thomas'' |Producer | |- | 1961 |''Bus Stop'' |Writer |1 episode |- | 1961–62 |''Naked City'' |Writer |7 episodes |- | 1961–64 |''Ben Casey'' |Writer |16 episodes |- | rowspan=2|1962 |''Route 66'' |Writer |1 episode |- |''Target: The Corruptors!'' |Writer |1 episode |- | 1962–63 |''The Untouchables'' |Writer |2 episodes |- | rowspan=2|1963 |''Alcoa Premiere'' |Writer |1 episode |- |''Wide Country'' |Writer |1 episode |- | rowspan=2|1964 |''The Richard Boone Show'' |Writer |1 episode |- |''Suspense'' |Producer |1 episode |- | rowspan=8|1965 |''Alfred Hitchcock Presents'' |Writer |1 episode |- |''Burke's Law'' |Writer |1 episode |- |''Gunsmoke'' |Writer |1 episode |- |''I Spy'' |Writer |2 episodes |- |''Mr. Novak'' |Writer |1 episode |- |''Slattery's People'' |Writer |1 episode |- |''The Wild Wild West'' |Writer |1 episode |- |''12 O'Clock High'' |Writer |1 episode |- | rowspan=2|1966 |''Combat!'' |Writer |1 episode |- |''Laredo'' |Writer |1 episode |- | 1966–67 |''The Big Valley'' |Writer |3 episodes |- | rowspan=3|1967 |''Insight'' |Writer |1 episode |- |''Iron Horse'' |Writer |2 episodes |- |''Star Trek'' |Writer |1 episode |- | 1967–68 |''Gentle Ben'' |Writer |5 episodes |- | 1968 |''Land of the Giants'' |Writer |1 episode |- | rowspan=2|1969 |''Hawaii Five-O'' |Writer |1 episode |- |''The Name of the Game'' |Writer |1 episode |- | 1971 |''O'Hara, U.S. Treasury'' |Writer |2 episodes |- | 1972 |''Nichols'' |Writer |1 episode |- |}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *{{IMDb name|id=0707804}} {{Memory Alpha}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ralston, Gilbert}} Category:1912 births Category:1999 deaths Category:American male screenwriters Category:American television producers Category:British male screenwriters Category:American television writers Category:Emigrants from Northern Ireland to the United States Category:Writers from County Down Category:People from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina Category:American male television writers Category:20th-century American businesspeople Category:Screenwriters from South Carolina Category:20th-century American male writers Category:20th-century American screenwriters Category:20th-century British screenwriters Category:Deaths from congestive heart failure in the United States Category:People from Newcastle, County Down