William Blinn - Crew Member of the Month

William Blinn,

William Frederick Blinn was born 21^st July 1937 in Toledo, Ohio. Known as Bill Blinn, he is a writer and TV executive producer.

William began his career in television in the 1960s when he moved to Los Angeles, as a screenwriter and started selling scripts and story ideas for shows like:  “Rawhide”, “Here Come the Brides”, “Gunsmoke” and “ The Rookies”.

In the 70s in addition to writing he moved into producing American TV shows and 1971, he wrote the screenplay for the television movie Brian's Song for which he won an Emmy and Peabody Award. 

He won a second Emmy in 1977 for his work on the miniseries Roots.

William also created and wrote the pilot for “Starsky & Hutch” and produced the 2004 Starsky and Hutch movie.

In 1984 he wrote the screenplay for the Prince Movie “Purple Rain”.

In 1981 he was brought in as the executive Producer on Fame. The Pilot episode had already been shot but the network weren’t happy so Bill was brought in to fix it. He also served as the head writer for the show for its first 3 seasons.

In 1984 he also had contract with NBC for another TV Show which he wanted to produce at the same time as Fame. Not wanting to have to travel far between shows he took the idea to both MGM and Lorimar Productions who both filmed in the same lot. Lorimar offered the better deal so he took it but the next day MGM fired him.

Whilst filming the episodes “Heritage” the whole cast and crew of Fame posed for a photo to say “We Love Bill Blinn”.

It is believed that since Fame had moved into first run Syndication at the start of the third season MGM had been looking for ways to cut costs and Bill working with another company was the perfect reason for MGM to get rid of him. He returned to appear on the final episode of Fame in 1987 as part of the crowd sing the theme tune at the end.

 After Fame William wrote for TV shows like “Our House” and “The Magical World of Disney.

He also in 1990 he wrote a TV movie “Polly Come Home”, which was directed by Debbie Allen.

In 1994 he created and wrote 2 episodes of a short lived series called “Heaven Help Us”.

In 1997 William created and wrote 4 episodes of the TV series Pensacola: Wings of Gold.

William has won 2 Writers Guild of America Awards for “The Boy Next Door” in 1997 and the Laurel Award for TV Writing Achievement in 2009.

Bill died of natural causes on 22nd October 2020 of Natural causes.