Background
Gillis was born in Kalama, Washington to a highway engineer and a piano teacher.
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Jackson Gillis
Edit ProfileEducation
He attended California State University, Fresno, but transferred to Stanford University where he earned his undergraduate degree in English in 1938. George Bernard Shaw attended a performance of one of his plays, in which Gillis acted.
Career
His family moved to California when he was a teenager. He worked in England after graduating from college. After returning to the United States, he performed with the Barter Theatre in Virginia, together with Gregory Peck.
Gillis received a note from Shaw that critiqued his exit, a postcard Gillis retained for decades.
He enlisted in the United States Army and worked as an intelligence officer during World World War II in the Pacific Theater. After completing his military service, Gillis moved to Los Angeles and took a job writing for radio shows, including the dramas The Whistler and Let George Do lieutenant
He moved into television scriptwriting and earned his first cr — for an episode of Racket Squad, a series that starred Reed Hadley — in 1952. He wrote for The Adventures of Superman from 1953 to 1957 and also spent several years writing for Perry Mason and Lassie.
His scriptwriting was prolific and varied, and over the years, he worked on shows such as Lost in Space, Hawaii Five-O, and Knight Rider.
He wrote for the series Columbo, starring Peter Falk, from 1971 to 1992. He also wrote a pair of detective novels, The Killers of Starfish and Chainsaw. Gillis was married to the former Patricia Cassidy, a fellow actor whom he met during his brief acting career at the Barter Theatre, until her death in 2003.
He died at age 93 on August 19, 2010, of pneumonia in Moscow, Idaho.
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Born
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Died
August 19, 2010 (aged 93) -
Nationality
United States