Writer and Former WGA, West, President Del Reisman Dies at 86
Reisman held numerous WGA positions and wrote episodes of numerous series, including Charlie’s Angels, Magnum P.I. and Little House on the Prairie.
Del Reisman, a longtime television writer and a former president of the Writers Guild of America, West, died January 7, 2011, in Los Angeles. He was 86.
According to news reports, the cause was cardiac arrest following a brief illness.
Reisman wrote for such series as Peyton Place, Cagney & Lacey, Charlie's Angels, Magnum, P.I., Scarecrow & Mrs. King, The Streets of San Francisco, Cannon, Little House on the Prairie, Lou Grant, The Six Million Dollar Man, Flamingo Road, The Blue Knight, Banacek, Harry O, Kung Fu, Ghost Story, Airwolf and The Yellow Rose.
Reisman grew up in Los Angeles and attended Hollywood High School. He then earned a degree in English and Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley. During World War II, he served with the U.S. Army Air Forces from 1942-45 and was trained as a bombardier on the B-17 Flying Fortress. He flew 35 combat missions, mostly over Northern Europe, and achieved the rank of First Lieutenant.
After the war, he returned to the U.S. and began his writing career on live television in the 1950s. Early positions included working as story editor for Playhouse 90, on which his renowned collaborators included producer Martin Manulis; writers Rod Serling, David Shaw, and Robert Alan Aurthur; and directors John Frankenheimer, George Roy Hill, Arthur Penn and Arthur Hiller. Later, he was a story editor for the original Twilight Zone.
Reisman joined the WGAW in 1965 and provided decades of service to the organization.
He served as WGAW president from 1991-93, as vice president from 1987-91 and as a member of the board of directors from 1979-87. He chaired three consecutive WGA negotiating committees during talks with producers.
In addition, he was chairman or member of more than 20 guild committees and was a member of the board of trustees of the Writers Guild Foundation from 1994-2005 and 2007 to the present.
Reisman was awarded the WGAW's Morgan Cox Award in 1999, given to those guild members ‘whose vital ideas, continuing efforts and personal sacrifice best exemplify the ideal of service to the guild.’
In his later years, Reisman served as a faculty member at the American Film Institute, teaching screenwriting in AFI’s Feature Film and Television Development Program for more than a decade. He was a longtime, active member of the Library of Congress' National Film Preservation Board, helping to preserve and restore some of our nation's most important film treasures.
In May, Reisman volunteered to participate in the Writers Guild Foundation's inaugural Veteran Writers Workshop, instructing and mentoring Army, Air Force and Navy war veterans and service personnel in the craft of writing.
Reisman is survived by a niece and half-sister.
In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations be made in Reisman’s name to the Writers Guild Foundation. Details of a WGAW-hosted memorial service are pending.
On October 28, 2003, Reisman had the distinction of being interviewed by the Television Academy Foundation’s Archive of American Television.
During the interview, conducted in Los Angeles by Archive Manager Gary Rutkowski, Reisman looked back on his early years growing up as a “studio brat” observing his mother at work as a secretary at Universal Studios in the 1930s.
He then described his entry in television as a reader on the anthology series Four Star Playhouse. He detailed his most prolific period in television as an associate producer/story editor on such television series as: the “live,” daily color anthology Matinee Theater, the prestigious ninety-minute anthology Playhouse 90, the classic filmed anthology The Twilight Zone, the popular crime series The Untouchables, the western series Rawhide, and the drama The Man and the City.
Reisman also discussed his work as story consultant on the nighttime soap opera Peyton Place, for which he wrote the cliffhanging final episode (the series was canceled without a finale).
He went in to talk about his later work as a freelance writer of such 1970s series as The Streets of San Francisco and Little House on the Prairie.
Finally, Reisman described his long service to the Writers Guild of America, west for which he ultimately served as President from 1991-93.
Other subjects discussed include the Hollywood blacklist and the McCarthy era, as well as Reisman’s work (at the WGA) to restore the credits of blacklisted writers of feature films made in the 1950s-60s.
The entire interview is available online here.