Joseph Stefano, the man behind the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and the co-creator of television’s science fiction mega-hit anthology series “The Outer Limits,” has died at age 84.
Stefano never intended to become a screenwriter. His first love was music. He enjoyed composing, singing, dancing and played piano. He even went as far as to tour with a modern dance troupe in the early 1950’s.
Stefano’s big TV break came quite by happenstance. In the 1950s one of the biggest shows on early TV was the “Ted Mack Family Hour,” the first official version of “American Idol.” He was hired as a writer for the show. Tired of taking work as a part-time dancer and full-time typist Stafano came onboard. This gig led him to compose several scripts, including “The Black Orchid,” which was made into a 1958 movie starring Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn.
After the success of “The Black Orchid”, Stefano was hired as a scriptwriter for 20th Century Fox. Hitchcock soon had him adapt a Robert Bloch pulp novel for the screen. That movie became the all-time classic thriller, “Psycho.”
He wrote several other screenplays, including “The Naked Edge” with Gary Cooper, but Stefano and screenwriter Leslie Stevens turned to TV to produce and write “The Outer Limits,” which ran from 1963 to ’65 and has been in syndication ever since. “Outer Limits” was resurrected with all new episodes on the Showtime pay cable network. He also wrote the 1969 thriller “Eye of the Cat” and co-wrote the comedy “Futz!” that same year with Rochelle Owens.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he wrote several made-for-TV movies, including the “Home for the Holidays” in 1972 and “Snowbeast ” in 1977.
Stefano is survived by his wife and son.
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