Joseph Stefano dies at 84
Joseph Stefano, motion picture writer and the man credited for scripting the big twist in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, passed away in California, after a heart attack at the age of 84.
One of his earliest jobs in the industry was serving as a supervisory writer and producer for The Outer Limits back in in 1963, helping to set the eerie tone of the show. He got his big break with Hitchcock by writing the screenplay adapatation of Psycho, and is credited with adding crucial elements to the story, such as Marion Crane’s fugitive background in the film, so as to make her early death all the more shocking. As he noted:
“Killing the leading lady in the first 20 minutes had never been done before.”
He went on to write other horror and suspense flicks such as the much-emulated Eye of the Cat, Snowbeast, and The Kindred, and even scripted an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as for the modern rebirth of The Outer Limits. He was consulted for Gus Van Sant’s re-make of Psycho and wrote the made-for-TV movie Psycho IV: The Beginning.
Via Cryptomundo