Ted Tally

Ted Tally (born April 9, 1952) is an Academy Award winning American playwright and screenwriter.

Born William Theodore Tally in North Carolina, Tally was educated at Yale College and the Yale School of Drama, and has also taught at each of them. His most notable credit is the screenplay for "The Silence of the Lambs", which won him the Academy Award for Best Screenplay as well as the Writers Guild of America Award, Chicago Film Critics Award and an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Other scripts include "White Palace", "Before and After", "Outbreak", and "All the Pretty Horses".

In addition to "Terra Nova", which won an Obie Award, and "Coming Attractions", which won the Outer Critics Circle Award, Tally's plays include "Hooters", "Little Footsteps", and "Silver Linings". His television scripts include "The Comedy Zone", "Hooters", "Terra Nova" for BBC-TV, and "The Father Clements Story" which won him the Christopher Award. His other honors include fellowships from the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation.

After declining to write the screenplay for "Hannibal", Tally returned to the Hannibal Lecter franchise to write "Red Dragon". When asked by Inside Film Online magazine why he opted not to write the screenplay for "Hannibal", he responded, "For a lot of reasons. I didn't like the book. The director, Jonathan Demme, and I read it and were horrified. We didn't see how we could make a movie from it that we could be proud of and not feel sleazy about it, without making it a totally different story, which we could have done on our own. It was upsetting because we had a friendship with Tom Harris and felt we owed him a lot. But he was defensive and didn't want anything changed and it was frustrating because it would have been the biggest payday for all of us, putting us up there in Spielberg territory." [http://www.insidefilm.com/aff99.html]

Tally is also credited as an associate producer for "Mission to Mars" (2000), as well as creative consultant for "Madagascar" (2005) and story consultant for "Shrek 2" (2004).

Tally lives with his wife and two children in Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, in Bucks County. His son's name is Austin Wilkes (born 1988)and his daughter's name is Amanda Devin (born 1992).

External links

*imdb name|id=0848217|title=Ted Tally
* [http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9507E3DB153BF932A15753C1A964948260|NY Times 1982 review of "Hooters"]
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0822205300 "Hooters" on Amazon.com]
* [http://www.filmmakerinterviews.com/articles/tedtally.htm Filmmaker Interviews]