William James Royce
Encyclopedia
Career
TelevisionWilliam Royce began his television career writing for the NBC television series In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Night (TV series)
In the Heat of the Night is a television series based on the motion picture and novel of the same name. It was broadcast on NBC from 1988 until 1992, and then on CBS until 1995...
, starring Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
winning actor Carroll O'Connor
Carroll O'Connor
John Carroll O'Connor best known as Carroll O'Connor, was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades...
as Chief William O. Gillespie and Academy Award nominee Howard Rollins
Howard Rollins
Howard Ellsworth Rollins, Jr. was an American television, film, and stage actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Coalhouse Walker, Jr...
as Detective Virgil Tibbs. Royce wrote 22 episodes while serving as Executive Story Editor
Story editor
Story editor is a job title in motion picture and television production, also sometimes called "supervising producer". A story editor is a member of the screenwriting staff who edits stories for screenplays....
, a position he inherited from writer Matt Harris (Carroll O'Connor).
In 1991, Royce wrote the screenplay, as well as the music and lyrics, for the award winning episode entitled, Sweet, Sweet Blues
Sweet, Sweet Blues
"Sweet, Sweet Blues" is an award winning episode of the NBC drama series In the Heat of the Night, starring Carroll O'Connor as Chief Bill Gillespie and Howard Rollins as Detective Virgil Tibbs.In the Heat of the Night was based on the 1965 novel by John Ball, which was also the basis for the...
, inspired by the real life saga of Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers
Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...
.That season In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Night (TV series)
In the Heat of the Night is a television series based on the motion picture and novel of the same name. It was broadcast on NBC from 1988 until 1992, and then on CBS until 1995...
won its first NAACP Image Award
NAACP Image Award
An NAACP Image Award is an accolade presented by the American National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music, and literature....
for Outstanding Dramatic Series.In 1994, after the seventh season, Royce left the show to write for Dick Van Dyke
Dick Van Dyke
Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke, and father of Barry Van Dyke...
on the mystery series Diagnosis: Murder
Diagnosis: Murder
Diagnosis: Murder is a mystery/medical/crime drama television series starring Dick Van Dyke as Dr. Mark Sloan, a medical doctor who solves crimes with the help of his son, a homicide detective played by his real-life son Barry Van Dyke. The series began as a spin-off of Jake and the Fatman...
, and later for the Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
winning mystery series Murder, She Wrote
Murder, She Wrote
Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,...
starring Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury
Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...
as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher
Jessica Fletcher
Jessica Fletcher is a fictional character portrayed by veteran Tony-winning actress Angela Lansbury on the American television series Murder, She Wrote...
.
Theatre
William Royce's first full-length play as writer/director was the romantic comedy A Fine Romance
A Fine Romance
A Fine Romance can refer to:*"A Fine Romance" , by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields* A Fine Romance a romantic comedy by William James Royce*A Fine Romance , a 1991 film...
which had its world premiere in Los Angeles at the Actor's Theatre in 1984.
In her critique, Polly Warfield of Back Stage West wrote, "Well, just go ahead and revel... Glamour, airy sophistication, elan, romance: If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you like. What more does anyone need?"
Royce's most recent production was his adaptation of the classic Pierre Beaumarchais
Pierre Beaumarchais
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was a French playwright, watchmaker, inventor, musician, diplomat, fugitive, spy, publisher, arms dealer, satirist, financier, and revolutionary ....
comedy The Marriage de Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro (play)
The Marriage of Figaro ) is a comedy in five acts, written in 1778 by Pierre Beaumarchais. This play is the second installment in the Figaro Trilogy, preceded by The Barber of Seville and followed by The Guilty Mother. The Barber begins the story with a simple love triangle in which the Count has...
entitled, One Mad Day! which premiered at the Norton Clapp
Norton Clapp
Matthew Norton Clapp was a Weyerhaeuser chairman who was among the private investors who built and owned the Seattle Space Needle....
Theatre in 2008.The adaptation saw numerous changes to the original five-act play, altering its structure to three acts, updating the dialogue and presenting the new production as a "screwball comedy
Screwball Comedy
Screwball Comedy is an album by the Japanese band Soul Flower Union. The album found the band going into a simpler, harder-rocking direction, after several heavily world-music influenced albums.-Track listing:...
." In classic screwball comedy tradition, Suzanne has been made the central character.Although Figaro
Figaro
-Literature:* Figaro, the central character in:** The Barber of Seville by Beaumarchais***Il barbiere di Siviglia , the opera by Paisiello based on Beaumarchais' play...
is still in the employ of the Count, he has been promoted from valet to Jester. Perhaps the biggest change comes in the third act when Figaro's Gypsy family arrive for "Figgie's" wedding!
Literature
William Royce's first novel, The Immaculate Deception, A Tom Sullivan Mystery, was published in September of 2011. This neo-noir
Neo-noir
Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.-History:The term Film Noir was coined by...
mystery series features ex-cop turned private investigator Tom Sullivan and his cat, Stella. The story begins in the confessional booth of a church in Southern California as Tom Sullivan makes what appears to be his final confession. Quickly losing blood from a bullet in his side, Sullivan tells his story, confessing to the murder he has just committed and revealing the identity of the person who may have murdered him. The mystery Sullivan unravels takes him from the beaches of Malibu to the grand estates in San Marino to a dimly-lit jazz club in Santa Monica to a ritzy fertility clinic in Beverly Hills, ultimately exposing what is perhaps the first case of "embryo-napping."