SARASOTA, Fla. - No disrespect intended to actors and directors, but William Froug was firm in his opinion about who was most important in the filmmaking process.
It's the screenwriter, hands down.
After all, as Froug once put it in a book, "without him, nobody works."
And to that end, Hollywood owed the former Tulsan a great debt.
With writing credits that included not only screenwriting books used by many film schools but episodes of such shows as "The Twilight Zone," "Gilligan's Island" and "Bewitched," Froug certainly kept a lot of people in the entertainment industry gainfully employed.
William "Bill" Froug, an Emmy-winning television writer-producer whose ties to Tulsa, where his family operated Froug’s Department Stores, ran deep, died Aug. 25 in Sarasota, Fla. He was 91. No local service is planned.
Adopted by his parents, William and Rita Froug, shortly after his birth in New York City, Froug grew up in Little Rock, but spent parts of his youth in Tulsa, home base for the family's chain of stores.
An only child with a big imagination, Froug was already a writer in the making, enjoying "unlimited opportunity to dream, conjure, romanticize and create in his own mind," said his daughter, Lisa Froug-Hirano of Hawaii.
Froug graduated from high school in Little Rock, where the family moved before returning to Tulsa, and then earned a journalism degree from the University of Missouri.
During World War II, he captained a Navy patrol ship in the Pacific.
Then, shortly after his discharge in 1946, Froug sold his first novella to True Detective Magazine. His career as a writer was officially launched.
Grounded, humble and hard-working thanks to his heartland upbringing, Froug was never the kind to "get carried away with a big ego," his daughter said.
Still, she added, after experiencing "a freedom he'd never felt ... there was no going back to small-town America" for him.
Froug soon moved into radio writing, and in 1949 joined CBS Radio as a producer. By 1956 he had worked his way up to vice president of programs for CBS Radio Hollywood, where, among other projects, he adapted, produced and directed an acclaimed radio version of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World."
His transition into television followed from there and brought more accolades, including, in 1959, an Emmy and the Producer's Guild Producer of the Year award for the Alcoa-Goodyear Theatre production of "Eddie."
In 1964, Froug became executive producer of drama for CBS-TV.
Over his career, Froug was connected with various shows, serving as a producer and seeing more than 100 of his own scripts filmed.
A onetime adjunct professor at UCLA, he later became a full professor and department chairman there, helping build the screenwriting program and confirm television as an area deserving of serious study.
His books include "Screenwriting Tricks of the Trade" and "The Screenwriter Looks at the Screenwriter," and among his many admirers was legendary film critic Roger Ebert.
Froug also won several awards, and was nominated for many others. In 1987, he was the recipient of the Writer's Guild's Valentine Davies Award; and in 2011, he was named an Emmy Legend of Television by the Archive of American Television.
But while Froug's own life read like one of his best scripts, he never forgot where he came from.
"He always considered Tulsa his home," his daughter said. "He was a Tulsa son and an Oklahoman."
Survivors include his four children, Suzy Allegra, Nancy Earth, Lisa Froug-Hirano and Jonathan Froug; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Tim Stanley 918-581-8385
tim.stanley@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Emmy-winning TV writer-producer hailed from Tulsa
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