I.A.L. Diamond(1920-1988)

Graduated from Columbia University in 1941. Signed as a junior writer at Paramount for $75 a week. His apprenticeship ended, when he joined Warner Brothers as full screenwriter (1946-49). Subsequently with 20th Century Fox (1951-52). Had his most productive spell at United Artists in collaboration with Billy Wilder, 1958-66 and 1970-72.

[interviewed in 1982]: I think we are dealing with an audience that is almost functionally illiterate, that has grown up on television and comic books. According to a survey I read, a kid of eighteen will have seen some 30,000 hours of television. He has seen 700 movies. There's no indication as to how many books he's read, but I'd guess about one-and-a-half.