Theodore J. Flicker

Theodore Jonas "Ted" Flicker (born June 6, 1930 in Freehold, N.J.) He is a screenwriter, playwright, television writer, stage director, producer, film and television director, actor, and sculptor. On May 13, 1994, he legally changed his name to Ted Flicker.

From 1949-51, he studied at RADA in London, alongside fellow drama students Joan Collins and Larry Hagman.

In 1954, he became a member of Chicago's Compass, America's first theatre of imrpovisational comedy, a sub-genre he founded along with fellow comedy pioneer Elaine May.

Eventually, he wore three hats as producer, director, and performer with the Compass Players in St. Louis. The company was such a success that he was able to raise money to establish the Crystal Palace Theatre, then the only monthly repertory stage in the country.

In 1960, he established "The Premise" on New York's Bleecker Street in a basement theatre, where he cast performers such as Joan Darling, Gene Hackman, George Segal, James Frawley. The show eventually transferred to the Comedy Theatre in London's West End.

A follow-up improvisational satire, "The Premise in Living Color," targeted racism and featured Godfrey Cambridge, Diana Sands, and Al Freeman Jr.,

In 1959 he wrote the book and directed the Broadway musical "The Nervous Set". Fran Landesman provided the music, and Tommy Wolf the score. The first so-called "jazz musical," it was the source of the standard tune "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most." The show was revived in 2006.

Moving into motion pictures, he directed and wrote the screenplay for his first film "The Troublemaker" in 1964. As a filmmaker, he is probably best known for his political lampoon and cult favorite, "The President's Analyst" (1967) with James Coburn.

He was co-creator and a writer with the television series "Barney Miller" (1975), and also directed "Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang" in 1978 and wrote for "Night Gallery", and "The Streets of San Francisco".

He has written extensively on expressionism and how it applies to his own art, and is the author of the epic novel "The Good American," one of the first books to be marketed exclusively on the Internet.

He is married to the former model Barbara Perkins, with whom he has resided in Santa Fe, New Mexico, since 1986.

Their home abuts a substantial sculpture garden displaying his own works as well as those of Paul Moore and Michael Bergt.

External links

* [http://www.filmreference.com/film/33/Ted-Flicker.html Biography]
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=AzCbfaDZQeIC&pg=PA267&lpg=PA267&dq=ted+flicker+premise&source=web&ots=SZHmvfj5xV&sig=N6UVs0TyYJdVsUbYUXS6ID8sY_0#PPA2,M1 "REVEL WITH A CAUSE-Liberal Satire in Postwar America]
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