Allan Everett Sloane (June 14, 1914 – April 29, 2001) was an American writer for radio and television. His career was significantly affected by the

Hollywood blacklist The Hollywood blacklist was an entertainment industry blacklist, broader than just Hollywood, put in effect in the mid-20th century in the United States during the early years of the Cold War. The blacklist involved the practice of denying emplo ...

Early life

He was born to Benjamin and Rachel Wisansky Silverman in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and grew up in New Jersey. After completing college in 1936, he became a newspaper journalist, writing for the ''Cape Cod Colonial'', ''

Parade A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, float (parade), floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually ce ...

'', and the ''

Philadelphia Bulletin The ''Philadelphia Bulletin'' was a daily evening newspaper published from 1847 to 1982 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was the largest circulation newspaper in Philadelphia for 76 years and was once the largest evening newspaper in the United ...

''. Prior to serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Sloane began writing scripts for radio, including service-action shows like ''The Man Behind the Gun'' (for which he dramatized the Allied landing on Sicily the day after the invasion, winning a 1943

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...

), ''Top Secret'', and ''Indictment''. Sloane also wrote scripts for

United Nations Radio United Nations Radio was created on 13 February 1946. In 2017, United Nations Radio and the UN News Centre merged to form UN News, producing daily news and multimedia content in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Swahili, Portuguese, Russian, Sp ...

and the

United Jewish Appeal The United Jewish Appeal (UJA) was a Jewish philanthropic umbrella organization that existed from its creation in 1939 until it was folded into the United Jewish Communities, which was formed from the 1999 merger of United Jewish Appeal (UJA), Cou ...

after the war, focusing on displaced persons in Europe.

Blacklisted

In November 1952, he was blacklisted by

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

, which stopped all his radio script-work. Sloane appeared as a voluntary "friendly witness" for the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

on January 13, 1954. For several decades thereafter, he used the pseudonym ''Ellison Carroll'' to avoid blacklist-related publicity. His early radio work with actor

Irving Pichel Irving Pichel (June 24, 1891 – July 13, 1954) was an American actor and film director, who won acclaim both as an actor and director in his Hollywood career. Career Pichel was born to a Jewish family in Pittsburgh. He attended Pittsburgh Cent ...

led to a job as researcher for the 1953 film

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...

, for which he shared a nomination for the 1954 Writers' Guild ''Best American Drama'' with Lothar Wolff.

Television Writer

He began writing episodes for television series in 1954-55, among them

Crossroads Crossroads, crossroad, cross road or similar may refer to: * Crossroads (junction), where four roads meet Film and television Films * ''Crossroads'' (1928 film), a 1928 Japanese film by Teinosuke Kinugasa * ''Cross Roads'' (film), a 1930 Brit ...

, and Navy Log. He is credited with creating the 1966 series ''

Hawk Hawks are bird of prey, birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. They are widely distributed and are found on all continents except Antarctica. * The subfamily Accipitrinae includes goshawks, sparrowhawks, sharp-shinned hawks and others. Th ...

'', which featured

Burt Reynolds Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. (February 11, 1936 – September 6, 2018) was an American actor, considered a sex symbol and icon of 1970s American popular culture. Reynolds first rose to prominence when he starred in television series such as ' ...

as the title character, as well as guest appearances by

Gene Hackman Eugene Allen Hackman (born January 30, 1930) is an American retired actor and former novelist. In a career that has spanned more than six decades, Hackman has won two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, one Screen Actors Guild Award, two BAFTAs ...

Robert Duvall Robert Selden Duvall (; born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career spans more than seven decades and he is considered one of the greatest American actors of all time. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, four Gold ...

, and

Diane Baker Diane Carol Baker is an American actress, producer and educator who has appeared in motion pictures and on television since 1959. Early life Baker was born in 1938 at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California a ...

. During the 1960s, he was well-enough considered to be asked to write the TV adaptation of Johnny Belinda, as well as scripts for TV theatre. Much of Sloane's later writing was longer-form shows (1+ hours) dealing with the situations of special individuals, including autism (''And James Was A Very Small Snail''), Downs' syndrome (''This Is My Son'', and ''Emily, Emily''), displaced persons (''Eleven Memory Street''), gifted children (''Sit Down and Shut Up, or Get Out''), and sickle-cell anemia (''To All My Friends On Shore'').

Recognition

Under his pseudonym ''Ellison Carroll'', he was nominated for an

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

for his 1963 Breaking Point screenplay ''And James Was A Very Small Snail''; and again in 1969 for the

Hallmark Hall of Fame ''Hallmark Hall of Fame'', originally called ''Hallmark Television Playhouse'', is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City-based greeting card company. The longest-running prime-time series in t ...

(episode 81) ''Teacher, Teacher''. In 1972, he won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama (Original Teleplay) with ''

To All My Friends on Shore ''To All My Friends On Shore'' is a 1972 television film drama starring Bill Cosby, and co-starring Gloria Foster. Cosby not only starred in the film, but produced it and worked on the film's music. Plot Blue (Cosby) works as a skycap for an airpor ...

''. His papers are held in the Hargrett Library at the

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

. Recordings of a number of his radio shows, and some lectures are maintained in the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Collection, also at the University of Georgia.

Personal life

Post-war, Sloane lived on Long Island, and commuted to New York (although he shared a small apartment in Manhattan with fellow-writer

Alvin Boretz Alvin Boretz (June 15, 1919 – July 22, 2010) was an American prolific writer for stage, screen, radio, and television. With an estimated one thousand dramatic scripts to his credit, Boretz contributed to the Golden Age of Television. Biography ...

). He soon moved his family to

New Canaan, Connecticut New Canaan () is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 20,622 according to the 2020 census. About an hour from Manhattan by train, the town is considered part of Connecticut's Gold Coast. The town is bounde ...

, where he lived for much of his professional life. He and his wife Elouise had three sons (one of whom was autistic).Allan Sloane, 86, A Writer for TV, Radio and Films - The New York Times
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sloane, Allen 1914 births 2001 deaths Primetime Emmy Award winners American radio writers American television writers United States Army personnel of World War II 20th-century American screenwriters