Background
Rolfe was born in New New York
screenwriter film producer television producer
Rolfe was born in New New York
He scored an Oscar nomination with his first screenplay, the Anthony Mann Western The Naked Spur in 1953. Most of Rolfe"s subsequent career was spent in television, where he created and was part of the writing staff on the highly regarded western series Have Gun - Will Travel and, most famously, When Ian Fleming was unable to continue development of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement concept, producer Norman Felton approached Rolfe, who was at that time working on The Eleventh Hour. Rolfe wrote the pilot for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement "The Vulcan Affair", and came up with the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement acronym.
Rolfe left the show at the end of its first season.
After his departure United Network Command for Law and Enforcement changed direction and exchanged tongue-in-cheek humour for more overt gags, culminating in the high-camp third season. Rolfe did not approve of the change in direction and felt the show lost its way after the first season.
In an interview given shortly before his death he commented:
I"ve always felt United Network Command for Law and Enforcement was a show that needed a particular kind of a mind to direct lieutenant You needed somebody that could do drama and then also lay humor into it but could sense when the humor had to be stopped and when you had to make the drama take over.
And you could talk forever about it, but unless you walk in with that instinct, you"re not going to get lieutenant
And I think that some of the people that followed me didn"t have an instinct for lieutenant So they got silly with lieutenant They never sat down, they didn"t really grasp the drama - that you had to have the dramatic spine.
Rolfe made a cameo appearance in one United Network Command for Law and Enforcement episode, "The Giuoco Piano Affair", where he played a Texan in the party-scene at Marion Raven"s apartment.
Robert Vaughn, who played Napoleon Solo in the series, called Rolfe "the real man from United Network Command for Law and Enforcement"
He continued to work as a producer and screenwriter right up until his death. His most notable contribution in later life was to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Vengeance Factor" and the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Vortex".
He died of a heart attack in 1993, aged 69, after collapsing while playing tennis.