Shirley Kassler Ulmer
LOS ANGELES--Shirley Kassler Ulmer, screenwriter, script
supervisor and frequent collaborator with her husband,
director Edgar G. Ulmer, died here July 6, 2000, of natural
causes. She was 86. One such collaboration was in the movie
featured in episode 623- THE AMAZING TRANSPARENT MAN, which
her husband directed and where she served as script
supervisor.
Born Shirley Kassler on June 12, 1914, in New York, her
family moved to California in the early 1930s after her
banker-father was wiped out in the 1929 stock crash. By the
late 1930s, she was working in Hollywood as a script
supervisor under the name Shirley Castle and married to
independent producer Max Alexander, the nephew of Universal
president Carl Laemmle. Then she she met Ulmer and instantly
fell in love with him. It would be a costly romance: Her
divorce from Alexander prompted Laemmle to use his influence
to blacklist the pair in Hollywood. The Ulmers were
subsequently forced to find work where they could, producing
many of their films at small independent studios.
Despite the hardships, Edgar created a notable body of
work and is well-remembered as a master of minimalism. In
addition to collaborating with her husband, Shirley wrote a
number of screenplays and teleplays -- including scripts the
TV series "The Lone Ranger," "Batman," "S.W.A.T.," "CHiPs"
and others) and acted as a script supervisor for directors
William Wyler, Frank Borzage, Frank Lloyd and Douglas Sirk.
She is the co-author of the 1987 tome "The Role of Script
Supervision in Film and Television, A Career Guide." Her
husband died in 1972 and in recent years, she and daughter
Arianne Arden have made many public appearances at
screenings of Ulmer's films. A DVD released last year of
containing two of his films, "Strange Woman" and "Moon Over
Harlem" contains an interview with her.
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