Harlan Jay Ellison (born May 27, 1934) is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.
His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. He was editor and anthologist for two ground-breaking science fiction anthologies, Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions. Ellison has won numerous awards including multiple Hugos, Nebulas and Edgars.
Ellison was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 27, 1934, the son of Serita (née Rosenthal) and Louis Laverne Ellison, a dentist and jeweler.[4][5] His Jewish family subsequently moved to Painesville, Ohio but returned to Cleveland in 1949, following his father's death. Ellison frequently ran away from home, taking an array of odd jobs—including, by age 18, "tuna fisherman off the coast of Galveston, itinerant crop-picker down in New Orleans, hired gun for a wealthy neurotic, nitroglycerine truck driver in North Carolina, short order cook, cab driver, lithographer, book salesman, floorwalker in a department store, door-to-door brush salesman, and as a youngster, an actor in several productions at the Cleveland Play House".[6]
Ellison attended Ohio State University for 18 months (1951–53) before being expelled. He has said the expulsion was for hitting a professor who had denigrated his writing ability, and over the next 40-odd years he sent that professor a copy of every story he published.
Ellison published two stories in the Cleveland News during 1949,[3] and he sold a story to EC Comics early in the 1950s. Ellison moved to New York City in 1955 to pursue a writing career, primarily in science fiction. Over the next two years, he published more than 100 short stories and articles. He married Charlotte Stein in 1956, but they divorced four years later. He said of the marriage, "four years of hell as sustained as the whine of a generator."
In 1954, Ellison decided to write about youth gangs. To research the issue, he joined a street gang in the Red Hook, Brooklyn, area, under the alias "Phil 'Cheech' Beldone". His subsequent writings on the subject include the novel Web of the City/Rumble, the collection The Deadly Streets, and part of his memoir Memos from Purgatory.
Ellison was drafted into the United States Army, serving as a Ranger from 1957 to 1959. In 1960, he returned to New York, living at 95 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. After moving to Chicago, Ellison wrote for William Hamling's Rogue magazine. As a book editor at Hamling's Regency Books, Hamling published novels and anthologies by writers such as B. Traven, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert Bloch, Philip José Farmer, and Clarence Cooper Jr. as well as Ellison.
In the late 1950s, Ellison wrote a number of erotic stories, such as "God Bless the Ugly Virgin" and "Tramp", which were later reprinted in Los Angeles-based girlie magazines. He first used the pseudonym Cordwainer Bird in July and August 1957, in two journals, each of which had accepted two of his stories. In each journal, one story was published under the name Harlan Ellison and the other under Cordwainer Bird. Later, as discussed in the Controversy section below, he used the pseudonym when he disagreed with the use or editing of his work.
Ellison moved to California in 1962, and subsequently began to sell his writing to Hollywood. He wrote the screenplay for The Oscar, starring Stephen Boyd and Elke Sommer. Ellison also sold scripts to many television shows: The Flying Nun, Burke's Law, Route 66, The Outer Limits, Star Trek, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Cimarron Strip, and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Ellison's screenplay for the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" has been considered the best of the 79 episodes in the series. During the late 1960s, Ellison wrote a column about television for the Los Angeles Free Press. Titled "The Glass Teat", the column addressed political and social issues and their portrayal on television at the time. The columns were gathered into two collections, The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat.
He participated in the 1965 Bloody Sunday March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, led by Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 1966, he married his third wife, Lory Patrick. The marriage lasted only seven weeks.
Also in 1966, in an article Esquire magazine would later name as the best magazine piece ever written, the journalist Gay Talese wrote about the goings-on around the enigmatic Frank Sinatra. The article, entitled "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold", briefly describes a clash between the young Harlan Ellison and Frank Sinatra, when the crooner took exception to Ellison's boots during a billiards game. Talese is quoted as saying of the incident, "Sinatra probably forgot about it at once, but Ellison will remember it all his life."
Ellison was hired as a writer for Walt Disney Studios but was fired on his first day after Roy O. Disney overheard him in the studio commissary joking about making a pornographic animated film featuring Disney characters. Ellison recounted this incident in his book Stalking the Nightmare, as part 3 of an essay titled "The 3 Most Important Things in Life". At a talk at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Ellison stated he was walking the halls of Disney and was bored, until he found a screwdriver, at which time he walked throughout the facility tightening every screw he saw until he was confronted in the basement. His termination came later that day.
Ellison continued to publish short fiction and nonfiction pieces in various publications, including some of his best known stories. "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" (1965) is a celebration of civil disobedience against repressive authority. "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" (1967) is an allegory of Hell, where five humans are tormented by an all-knowing computer throughout eternity; the story was the basis of a 1995 computer game; Ellison participated in the game's design and provided the voice of the god-computer AM. Another story, "A Boy and His Dog", examines the nature of friendship and love in a violent, post-apocalyptic world and was made into the 1975 film of the same name, starring Don Johnson.
Ellison edited the influential science fiction anthology Dangerous Visions (1967), for which he commissioned stories accompanied by his commentary-laden biographical sketches of the authors. He challenged the authors to write stories at the edge of the genre. Many of the stories exceeded the traditional boundaries of science fiction pioneered by respected old school editors such as John W. Campbell, Jr. As an editor, Ellison was influenced and inspired by experimentation in the popular literature of the time, such as the beats. A sequel, Again Dangerous Visions, was published in 1972. A third volume, The Last Dangerous Visions, has been repeatedly postponed .
In 1976, Ellison married his fourth wife, Lori Horowitz. He was 41 and she was 19. He said of the marriage, "I was desperately in love with her, but it was a stupid marriage on my part." They were divorced after eight months.[12]
Ellison served as creative consultant to the science fiction TV series The Twilight Zone (1980s version) and Babylon 5. As a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), he has voiceover credits for shows including The Pirates of Dark Water, Mother Goose and Grimm, Space Cases, Phantom 2040, and Babylon 5, as well as made an onscreen appearance in the Babylon 5 episode "The Face of the Enemy".[citation needed]
Ellison has commented on a great many movies and television programs (see The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat for television criticism and commentary; see Harlan Ellison's Watching for movie criticism and commentary), both negatively and positively.
He does all his writing on a manual Olympia typewriter, and has a substantial distaste for personal computers and most of the Internet.[citation needed]
For two years, beginning in 1986, Ellison took over as host of the Friday-night radio program, Hour 25, on Pacifica Radio station KPFK-FM, Los Angeles, after the death of Mike Hodel, the show's founder and original host. Ellison had been a frequent and favorite guest on the long-running program. In one episode, he brought in his typewriter and proceeded to write a new short story live on the air (he titled the story "Hitler Painted Roses"). Hour 25 also served as the inspiration for his story, "The Hour That Stretches".
Ellison's 1992 short story "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore" was selected for inclusion in the 1993 edition of The Best American Short Stories.
In the 1990s, Ellison provided commentary segments for the early Sci-Fi Channel program Sci-Fi Buzz.
Ellison has narrated numerous audiobooks, written by him and by such other authors as Orson Scott Card, Arthur C. Clarke, Jack Williamson, and Terry Pratchett.
Ellison lives in Los Angeles, California with Susan, his fifth wife. In 1994, he suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized for quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery.
He had his own name trademarked in 2005, registered by The Kilimanjaro Corporation, which Ellison owns, and under which all his work is copyrighted.
Ellison voiced himself as a character on the show Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, in the H. P. Lovecraft-inspired episode "The Shrieking Madness". He later reprised the role in the series finale, Come Undone, which aired in April 2013.
In April 2013, Ellison completed work on a forthcoming episode of The Simpsons, voicing "a scene with Milhouse and the Comic Book Guy".
Harlan Ellison - A Boy & his dog.mobi
Harlan Ellison - A Friend to Man.mobi
Harlan Ellison - A Prayer For No One's Enemy.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans Latitud
Harlan Ellison - All the Sounds of Fear [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Alone Against Tomorrow [anthology].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Along The Scenic Route.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Approaching Oblivion; Road Signs On the Treadmil
Harlan Ellison - Back To The Drawing Boards [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Battlefield [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Brillo (& Ben Bova).mobi
Harlan Ellison - Broken Glass.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Chained To The Fast Lane In The Red Queen's Race
Harlan Ellison - Commuter's Problem [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Count the Clock That Tells the Time.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Deal From The Bottom [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Deathbird Stories [anthology].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Do-It-Yourself [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Ecowareness [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Eidolons.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Ellison Wonderland [anthology].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Ernest & The Machine God.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Erotophobia.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Escapegoat.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Final Trophy.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Footsteps.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Gentleman Junkie And Other Stories of the Hung-U
Harlan Ellison - Glowworm.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Gnomebody [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Grail.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Hadj [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Harlan Ellison's Watching.mobi
Harlan Ellison - How Interesting; A Tiny Man [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - In Lonely Lands [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Jeffty is Five.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Laugh Track [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Lonelyache.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Love Ain't Nothing but Sex Misspelled [anthology
Harlan Ellison - Mealtime [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Midnight in the Sunken Cathedral.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Mom.mobi
Harlan Ellison - No Doors, No Windows.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Nothing for My Noon Meal [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Objects Of Desire In The Mirror Are Close Than T
Harlan Ellison - On The Slab.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Paingod & Other Delusions [anthology].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Paladin Of The Lost Hour.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Partners in Wonder [anthology].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Pennies, Off A Dead Man's Eyes.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Prince Mishkin Hold The Relish.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Pulling Hard Time.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Punky & The Yale Men.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Quicktime.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Rain, Rain, Go Away [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman.mobi
Harlan Ellison - S.R.O.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Sensible City.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Shatterday.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Soft Monkey.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Spider Kiss.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Stalking the Nightmare [anthology].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Stuffing.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Avenger Of Death.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the
Harlan Ellison - The Deathbird.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The End of the Time of Leinard.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Essential Ellison [anthology].mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Function Of Dream Sleep.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Gloconda.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Outpost Undiscovered By Tourists, A Tale of
Harlan Ellison - The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World
Harlan Ellison - The Region Between.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Saga Of Machine Gun Joe.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Silver Corridor [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Sky Is Burning [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Sword Of Parmagon.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Time of the Eye.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Very Last Day of a Good Woman [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Voice In The Garden.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Whimper of Whipped Dogs.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Wilder One.mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Wind Beyond the Mountains [ss].mobi
Harlan Ellison - The Wine Has Been Left Open Too Long & the Memor
Harlan Ellison - Toward The Light.mobi
Harlan Ellison - Troublemakers [anthology].mobi
Harlan Ellison - Vic & blood [anthology].mobi
Harlan Ellison - When Auld's Acquaintance Is Forgot.mobi
Harlan Ellison - With Virgil Oddum At The East Pole.mobi
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