Name Thomas Scortia | Role Author | |
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Movies The Towering Inferno, The Fifth Missile Books The Glass Inferno, The Prometheus Crisis, The Gold Crew Nominations Nebula Award for Best Short Story Similar People Frank M Robinson, Stirling Silliphant, John Guillermin, Fred Koenekamp, Irwin Allen | ||
Interview with a Phoenix - Short Fantasy Story
Thomas Nicholas Scortia (August 29, 1926 – April 29, 1986) was a science fiction author. He worked in the American aerospace industry until the late 1960s/early 1970s. He collaborated on several works with fellow author Frank M. Robinson. He sometimes used the pseudonyms "Scott Nichols", "Gerald MacDow", and "Arthur R. Kurtz."
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Biography
Scortia was born in Alton, Illinois. He attended Washington University in St. Louis, where he earned a degree in chemistry in 1949. He worked for a number of aerospace companies during the 1950s and 1960s, and held a patent for the fuel used by one of the Jupiter fly-by missions.
Scortia had been writing in his spare time while still working in the aerospace field. When the industry began to see increased unemployment in the early 1970s, Scortia decided to try his hand at full-time writing. His first novel, The Glass Inferno (in collaboration with Frank M. Robinson) was the inspiration for the 1974 film The Towering Inferno. Scortia also collaborated with Dalton Trumbo on the novel The Endangered Species.
Scortia died of leukemia in La Verne, California on April 29, 1986.
Harlan Ellison has credited Scortia with having "literally saved [Ellison] from being courtmartialed back in 1958".