Wilton Schiller

 Wilton Schiller was a writer and producer for dozens of television series, including the popular ABC drama The Fugitive, which drew a record audience for its 1967 finale.

Schiller was born in Chicago, where he graduated from the University of Chicago and broke into show business as a writer for radio shows and as a stand-up comedian.

After World War II, during which he served as a psychiatric assistant in the Army, he moved to Los Angeles, where he became a literary agent at MCA.

He got his start in television as a writer for the adventure drama China Smith, starring Dan Duryea, in 1952. Other early credits included Lassie, Adventures of Superman, Have Gun—Will Travel and Broken Arrow. He later wrote for Dragnet, Rawhide, Man with a Camera, Leave It to Beaver, Adam-12 and The Six Million Dollar Man.

He began producing in the 1960s with the medical drama Ben Casey, followed by The Fugitive, Mannix and a handful of telefilms. The final episode of The Fugitive, in which the titular man on the run, Dr. Richard Kimble, confronts his nemesis, the one-armed man, and is exonerated, was watched by more than 78 million viewers, a record at the time.

Schiller wrote the screenplay for the 1964 movie The New Interns, with George Segal, Dean Jones and Telly Savalas. Also, in 1982, with Patricia Payne, he co-wrote and co-produced the six-hour miniseries For the Term of His Natural Life, featuring Anthony Perkins, Samantha Eggar, Patrick MacNee and Colin Friels.

In addition, he was executive producer of the 2007 film California Dreaming, starring Lea Thompson, which was produced by his wife — and sometime collaborator — Patricia Payne Schiller.

In the 1960s he taught screenwriting at UCLA.

Schiller died July 27, 2014, in Studio City, California. He was 95.