From Cleveland Dropout to Award Winning Screenwriter #506: Ernest Tidyman Papers
Ernest Tidyman was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1928. His father was a newspaper reporter. His mother was a telephone operator at a Cleveland newspaper office. Young Ernest dropped out of school before he finished the seventh grade.
By the time he was sixteen he was working as a police reporter for the Cleveland News. It was the beginning of a long career as a journalist and editor. He eventually worked his way up to an editorship at the New York Times. But it was Tidyman’s ability to translate insights into human nature into compelling stories that brought him fame and fortune.
Tidyman took up novel writing in the late 1960s. His first major novel, Shaft, was published in 1970. Nearly simultaneously, he wrote the screenplay for the film The French Connection. A screenplay for Shaft soon followed. Suddenly Tidyman was one of the top Hollywood screenwriters. He won an Oscar for The French Connection and an NAACP Image Award for Shaft.
Tidyman went on to write more scripts, books, and teleplays. He called writing “fiercely pleasurable.” Tidyman died in London in 1984 at the age of 56.
See the Ernest Tidyman papers at UW’s American Heritage Center to learn more.