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Sol Saks, the screenwriter and TV executive who became a millionaire for writing the pilot for the TV series Bewitched (1964), was born on December 13, 1910 n New York City, though he was raised Chicago from the time he was two-years-old.
A radio actor as a child, Saks started out his professional life as an adult as a journalist, serving a stint as a cub reporter while attending Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. In the generation preceding him, it was newspapers that served as the field in which a young man could become a working writer and make a living from his pen. In Saks's generation, radio served t
Sol Saks, the screenwriter and TV executive who became a millionaire for writing the pilot for the TV series Bewitched (1964), was born on December 13, 1910 n New York City, though he was raised Chicago from the time he was two-years-old.
A radio actor as a child, Saks started out his professional life as an adult as a journalist, serving a stint as a cub reporter while attending Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. In the generation preceding him, it was newspapers that served as the field in which a young man could become a working writer and make a living from his pen. In Saks's generation, radio served that purpose. He also became a published short story-writer before becoming a writer for Chicago-based radio programs in the 1930s. He was paid the princely sum of $20 for his first radio script.
While Saks always dreamed of transitioning to drama, it was comedy writing that became his forte and made his fortune. Radio died off in Chicago at the start of the 1940s. He was specializing in Westerns and airplane scripts at the time and would put jokes in otherwise serious scripts, which gave him a reputation as a comedy writer. In 1943, Saks relocated to Los Angeles, as he heard there was a demand for comedy writers. Handled by the William Morris Talent agency in Chicago, the Los Angeles office ignored him, so he went to the advertising agency that sponsored Red Skelton's radio show. (At the time, the agencies were the producers of the shows.) Hired at $200 week for The Red Skelton Hour (1951), he quit after two weeks in order to go to work for Duffy's Tavern (1954), the most prestigious comedic radio show of its time.
On the staff at "Duffy's Tavern", he worked with the legendary Abe Burrows, the creator and head-writer of the series, but the two did not get along. Saks was too independent minded to take orders from Burrows. But it was the hours that got to Saks, The show became a demanding mistress. The writers worked 80 hours a week on a script, typically working 30 hours straight the day before the show aired, delivering the script one-half hour before air time.
After a year, Saks left "Duffy's Tavern" and went on to write for the radio shows "The Baby Snooks Show" with Fanny Brice,and "The Beulah Show" with Hattie McDaniel. He served as the head writer for one of two teams on "Beluah", the other team being headed by Sherwood Schwartz.
He also was a writer on Dinah Shore's radio show, which was a failure as no one knew how to write for her at the time. He worked on Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Nelson's radio show, transitioning it from a variety show to a story show. Sherwood Schwartz also worked on the show, and both resented the fact that they received no credit, which was typical of radio, but also because Ozzie took credit for writing the show himself by word-of-mouth.
Writers were as disrespected in radio and TV as they had been in the movies. Once a script was written, producers did not want the writer around.
In the early 1950s, radio showed began to be transformed for TV, and Saks segued into television as that's where the jobs were. Saks found that writing for TV was a lot easier than writing for the radio. Radio was written one line at the time, unlike TV, which was more story-driven. He had his first credit with the sitcom My Favorite Husband (1953), which originally was a radio series starring Lucille Ball (who was otherwise engaged in her epochal show). Saks himself approached CBS with the idea for adapting the radio show for TV. It was his idea not to use comedians but dramatic actors for the show, even though it was a comedy. Saks later developed the sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve (1957) (1957) for Ida Lupino. and wrote for other TV series and anthology programs.
Known for his independence, i.e., his penchant for quitting jobs he didn't like. Offered a writing job on I Married Joan (1952)m he refused as he did not like star Joan Davis. He soon relented and took a seven week-long writing-gig on the show simply to get enough money to buy a swimming pool. His independence was misinterpreted as his having great wealth, a misperception that made producers respect him.
He grew to loath writing for a weekly series due to the grind of putting the same characters into the same situations week after week. He moved on to writing pilots for TV series, plays that never made it to Broadway, and a script for Cary Grant's last movie, Walk Don't Run (1966), a remake of George Stevens's classic The More the Merrier (1943). In the 1960s, CBS hired him and put him in charge of its comedy series.
Ironically, after writing the script for the pilot of "Bewitched" for ABC, Saks never wrote another word for the hit series that ran on ABC for nine season from 1964 to 1972. The royalties accrued from creating the series made him rich. He admitted he based the idea for the series on he 1942 movie I Married a Witch (1942) and Bell Book and Candle (1958).
He published the book "The Craft of Comedy Writing" in 1985.
Sol Saks died of respiratory failure caused by pneumonia on April 16, 2011. He was 100 years old.
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