Created by Irwin Gielgud
(1919-61)
& Gwen (née Bagni) Gielgud
(1913-2001)
Savage is the Name was a pretty good title for a proposed television show that would have starred Barry Sullivan as HENRY SAVAGE, a former FBI Agent turned security specialist for a major airline, with Pat O’Brien as his sidekick.
The pilot for the show aired as an episode of the CBS anthology Pursuit. It was called “Ticket to Tangiers,” and also starred Sullivan, although the sidekick was played by William Gargan. In the episode, Henry, spots the man who once shot him, boarding a plane, and ends up following him halfway around the world.
Having a private dick as the main character would have been a unique twist for the time, air travel being still considered exotic, and there would have been plenty of potential for interesting storylines. Unfortunately, there were apparently “script problems,” and the show was never made.
Irwin and Gwen Gieguld were a husband and wife team of screenwriters, although Gwen is the one with the more impressive credits. She wrote for radio in the 1940s and 1950s, then wrote a handful of films and many TV episodes between 1950 and 1987. She wrote with all three of her husbands: fJohn Bagni, who died in 1954; followed by Irwin Gielgud, whom she married in 1955 and who died in 1961; and finally, with Paul Dubov, whom she married in 1963 and who died in 1979. After his death, she kept on writing for TV. Beside creating Henry Savage, she and Irwin co-wrote two teleplays for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
TELEVISION
- PURSUIT
(1958-59, CBS)
Black & white
12 60-minute episodes
Premiere: October 22, 1958
Last episode: January 14, 1959
Executive producer Norman Felton
Producer Peter Kortner, Charles Russell- “Ticket to Tangiers”
(November 5, 1958)
Written by Irwin & Gwen Gielgud
Directed by David Greene
Starring Barry Sullivan as HENRY SAVAGE
Also starring Nina Foch, Martin Balsam, Zachary Scott, William Gargan
- “Ticket to Tangiers”
- SAVAGE IS THE NAME
(1958; never produced))
Created by Irwin & Gwen Gielgud
Starring Barry Sullivan as HENRY SAVAGE
Also starring Pat O’Brien
