Victor Brooke Miller (born May 14, 1940) is an American

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, ...

for

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

and

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

. He is best known for his screenplay of the original ''

Friday the 13th Friday the 13th is considered an unlucky day in Western superstition. It occurs when the 13th day of the month in the Gregorian calendar falls on a Friday, which happens at least once every year but can occur up to three times in the same year. ...

'' film, the popularity of which spawned a long series of sequels. Miller was not involved with any of the sequels, though he remains credited for creating the characters of

Jason Voorhees Jason Voorhees () is a character from the ''Friday the 13th'' series. He first appeared in '' Friday the 13th'' (1980) as the young son of camp-cook-turned-killer Mrs. Voorhees, in which he was portrayed by Ari Lehman. Created by Victor Mi ...

, his mother Pamela, and the heroine Alice Hardy. He has also written for several daytime television series, for which he has won three

Daytime Emmy Award The Daytime Emmy Awards, or Daytime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences ...

s. His television work includes ''

Guiding Light ''Guiding Light'' (known as ''The Guiding Light'' before 1975) is an American radio and television soap opera. It is listed in ''Guinness World Records'' as the third longest-running drama in television in American history. ''Guiding Light'' a ...

'', ''

One Life to Live ''One Life to Live'' (often abbreviated as ''OLTL'') is an American soap opera broadcast on the ABC television network for more than 43 years, from July 15, 1968, to January 13, 2012, and then on the internet as a web series on Hulu and iTunes ...

'', '' Another World'', and ''

All My Children ''All My Children'' (often shortened to ''AMC'') is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 5, 1970, to September 23, 2011, and on The Online Network (TOLN) from April 29 to September 2, 2013, via Hulu, Hulu Plus, and ...

''. Much of his tenure of several shows has been working under

head writer A head writer is a person who oversees the team of writers on a television or radio series. The title is common in the soap opera genre, as well as with sketch comedies and talk shows that feature monologues and comedy skits. In fictional comedy o ...

Megan McTavish Megan McTavish (born April 2, 1949, Elgin, Illinois) is American television actress and soap opera writer. McTavish is best known for several head writing stints on ''All My Children''. Early career Before becoming a writer, McTavish was a Chica ...

Early life

Miller was born in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, Louisiana, the son of John Dabney and Barbara Leovy Miller. He attended

Milton Academy Milton Academy (also known as Milton) is a highly selective, coeducational, independent preparatory, boarding and day school in Milton, Massachusetts consisting of a grade 9–12 Upper School and a grade K–8 Lower School. Boarding is offered ...

Milton, Massachusetts Milton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States and an affluent suburb of Boston. The population was 28,630 at the 2020 census. Milton is the birthplace of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and architect Buckminster Fuller. ...

, and

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...

, where he says he took every creative writing course offered. Beginning in 1962, he worked in TV programming for a year with

Stuart Erwin Stuart Erwin (February 14, 1903 – December 21, 1967) was an American actor of stage, film, and television. Early years Erwin was born in Squaw Valley, Fresno County, California. He attended Porterville High School and the University o ...

, Lee Rich, Irwin Segelstein, and Phil Capice at

Benton & Bowles Benton & Bowles (B&B) was a New York-based advertising agency founded by William Benton and Chester Bowles in 1929. One of the oldest agencies in the United States, and frequently one of the 10 largest, it merged with D'Arcy-MacManus Masius in 1 ...

Advertising in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He co-founded of the

American Shakespeare Theatre The American Shakespeare Theatre was a theater company based in Stratford, Connecticut, United States. It was formed in the early 1950s by Lawrence Langner, Lincoln Kirstein, John Percy Burrell, and philanthropist Joseph Verner Reed. The Amer ...

's Center for Theatre Techniques in Education and attended

Herbert Berghof Herbert Berghof (13 September 1909 – 5 November 1990) was an Austrian-American actor, director and acting teacher.Kennedy, Dennis. ''The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance'', Oxford Univ. Press (2010) p. 61 Early life Born and educ ...

's playwriting class in New York City.

Directing and writing career

'' is Miller's most successful film, grossing $59,754,601 worldwide on a very low budget of $550,000. The original is the only one of the series that had Miller's involvement; it grew into a long series of sequels and became the highest grossing horror franchise in the United States, earning a worldwide total of $465,239,523. Miller says he hasn't seen any of the other ''Friday the 13th'' films because he does not approve of

being the killer rather than Jason's

mother ] A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of ...

as she was in the original. Miller has been involved in a protracted lawsuit to gain the rights to the first ''Friday the 13th'' film. The issue turned on whether Miller's was a "work for hire", resolved on September 30, 2021, when the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided otherwise; consequently, Miller had the right to terminate rights to his work. For Copyright Act purposes, as a screenwriter, Victor Miller was an independent contractor of the film production company (Manny, Inc.) in 1979, when Miller wrote the screenplay (the film was released in 1980). The court concluded that copyright law, not labor law, controlled the "work for hire" determination, and thus affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to Miller. He adapted two novels into films: ''

A Stranger Is Watching ''A Stranger Is Watching'' (1977) is a suspense novel by Mary Higgins Clark. Plot summary The main characters in the novel are Steve Peterson, whose wife Nina was murdered two years before, his six-year-old son Neil, who witnessed the murder, an ...

'' by

Mary Higgins Clark Mary Higgins Clark (born Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins (December 24, 1927 – January 31, 2020) was an American author of suspense novels. Each of her 51 books was a bestseller in the United States and various European countries, and all of he ...

was adapted into the 1982 film of the same name and the 1967 young adult novel '' The Black Pearl'' by

Scott O'Dell Scott O'Dell (May 23, 1898 – October 15, 1989) was an American writer of 26 novels for young people, along with three novels for adults and four nonfiction books. He wrote historical fiction, primarily, including several children's novels a ...

into the 1977 film of the same name. His horror film '' Rock Paper Dead'' was released in 2018 and he has co-written the script for the horror thriller ''Eden Falls''.

Awards and nominations

Daytime Emmy Awards The Daytime Emmy Awards, or Daytime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (N ...

Nominations

*(1990, 1999, 2001, 2002 & 2004; Best Writing; ''All My Children'') *(1994 & 1996; Best Writing; ''Another World'') *(1983; Best Writing; ''One Life to Live'')

Wins

*(1985, 1988 & 1998; Best Writing; ''All My Children'')

Writers Guild of America Award The Writers Guild of America Awards is an award for film, television, and radio writing including both fiction and non-fiction categories given by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America West since 1949. Eligibility ...

Nominations

*(1989 & 1999 Season; ''All My Children'') *(1997 Season; ''Guiding Light'') *(1993-1995 Season; ''Another World'')

Wins

*WIN (1998, 2000, 2001 & 2003 Season; ''All My Children'')

Personal life

Miller is the third of four children. He married Elizabeth (Tina) Couzens Thurston in 1962.

Books

He was the author of several books titled, Telly Salavas

Kojak ''Kojak'' is an American action crime drama television series starring Telly Savalas as the title character, New York City Police Department Detective Lieutenant Theodopolis "Theo" Kojak. Taking the time slot of the popular ''Cannon'' series, ...

in a numbered series. The books were published in New York by

Pocket Books Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books. History Pocket Books produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in the United States in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing ...

between 1974 through 1975. Several reprints were published by Star Books in the U.K. without the series number, but with same title. The series: * 1974, Kojak #1: ''Siege'' * 1974, Kojak #2: ''Requiem for a Cop'' * 1975, Kojak #3: ''Girl in the River'' * 1975, Kojak #4: ''Therapy in Dynamite'' * 1975, Kojak #5: ''Death Is Not a Passing Grade'' * 1975, Kojak #6: ''A Very Deadly Game'' * 1975, Kojak #7: ''Take-Over'' * 1975, Kojak #8: ''Gun Business'' * 1975, Kojak #9: ''The Trade-off'' Other books: *1976, ''Fernanda'',

*1978, ''Hide The Children'',

Ballantine Books Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remains p ...

*1978, ''Giving In To Get Your Way: The attack-tics system for winning your everyday battles'',

Delacorte Press Dell Publishing Company, Inc. is an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, that was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. with $10,000 (approx. $145,000 in 2021), two employees and one magazine title, ''I Confess'', and so ...

*1979, ''Toga Party'',

Fawcett Books Fawcett Publications was an American publishing company founded in 1919 in Robbinsdale, Minnesota by Wilford Hamilton "Captain Billy" Fawcett (1885–1940). It kicked off with the publication of the bawdy humor magazine ''Captain Billy's Whiz B ...

*1979, ''The Glory Sharer'',

Jove Books Jove Books, formerly known as Pyramid Books, is an American paperback and eBook publishing imprint, founded as an independent paperback house in 1949 by Almat Magazine Publishers (Alfred R. Plaine and Matthew Huttner). The company was sold to ...

*1981, ''Angel's Blood'',

Playboy Press PLBY Group, Inc. is an American global media and lifestyle company founded by Hugh Hefner as Playboy Enterprises, Inc. to oversee the ''Playboy'' magazine and related assets. Its headquarters are in Los Angeles, California. The company is fo ...

*1981, ''The Book Of Worries: Hundreds of Horrible Things that Can Happen to You'',

Warner Books Grand Central Publishing is a book publishing imprint of Hachette Book Group, originally established in 1970 as Warner Books when Warner Communications acquired the Paperback Library. When Time Warner sold their book publishing business to Hachet ...

*1983, ''Windborne'',

Bantam Books Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. ...

*1993, ''Aikido In Everyday Life: Giving In to Get Your Way'',

North Atlantic Books North Atlantic Books is a non-profit, independent publisher based in Berkeley, California, United States. Distributed by Penguin Random House Publisher Services, North Atlantic Books is a mission-driven social justice-oriented publisher. Founded ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

Reprint of 1978 with Terry Dobson co-author. *''American Dynasty'' (3 volumes),

Dell Books Dell Publishing Company, Inc. is an American publisher of books, magazines and comic books, that was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. with $10,000 (approx. $145,000 in 2021), two employees and one magazine title, ''I Confess'', and so ...

Filmography

*'' The Black Pearl'' (1977) *''

Manny's Orphans ''Manny's Orphans'' (also known as ''Kick!'') is a 1978 American family comedy film directed by Sean S. Cunningham. The film was also distributed under the title ''Kick!''. Plot Manny ( Jim Baker) coaches soccer for the fashionable Creighton Ha ...

'' (1978) *''

Here Come the Tigers ''Here Come the Tigers'' is a 1978 American sports comedy film directed by Sean S. Cunningham. Plot "A wild team of misfits think that they can make it big. What's a coach to do with a chronic nose-picker, a flatulent fielder, an out of contro ...

'' (1979) *''

'' (1980) *''

'' (1982) *''

Getting In ''Getting In'', also known as ''Student Body'', is a 1994 American black comedy, black comedy film directed by Doug Liman starring Andrew McCarthy and Stephen Mailer. Plot When Rupert Grim learns that there are several students ahead of him in l ...

'' (1994) *''

Jury Duty Jury duty or jury service is service as a juror in a legal proceeding. Juror selection process The prosecutor and defense can dismiss potential jurors for various reasons, which can vary from one state to another, and they can have a specifi ...

'' (1995) *'' On the Edge'' (2001) *''

Rock, Paper, Scissors Rock paper scissors (also known by other orderings of the three items, with "rock" sometimes being called "stone," or as Rochambeau, roshambo, or ro-sham-bo) is a hand game originating in China, usually played between two people, in which each ...

'' (2017) *''Eden Falls'' (2019) *''

The Once and Future Smash ''The Once and Future Smash'' is a 2022 mockumentary film directed by Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein. The film tells the story of Mikey Smash (Michael St. Michaels) and William Mouth (Bill Weeden), who both played the same football canni ...

'' (2022)

Television

*''

'' **Associate head writer: 1984–1986, 1987–1989, 1997–2001, July 2003 – July 10, 2006 *'' Another World'' **Associate head writer: 1990–1995 *''

General Hospital ''General Hospital'' (often abbreviated as ''GH'') is an American daytime television soap opera. It is listed in ''Guinness World Records'' as the longest-running American soap opera in production, and the second in American history after '' ...

'' **Associate head writer: 2001–2002 *''

'' **Associate head writer: 1986–1987, 1995–1997 *''

'' **Associate head writer: 1982–1984 * Crystal Lake (TV Series)

References

External links

* *
13 Questions with Victor Miller
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Victor 1940 births Living people American soap opera writers American male screenwriters Daytime Emmy Award winners Writers from New Orleans Writers Guild of America Award winners American male television writers Screenwriters from Louisiana Milton Academy alumni Yale College alumni