Ted Tally Video | Clips from Films Written and Interviews

Ted Tally (born April 9, 1952) is an American playwright and screenwriter. Born William Theodore Tally in North Carolina, Tally was educated at Yale College and the Yale School of Drama, and has also taught at each of them. His most notable credit is the screenplay for The Silence of the Lambs, which won him the Academy Award for Best Screenplay as well as the Writers Guild of America Award, Chicago Film Critics Award and an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Other scripts include White Palace, Before and After, Outbreak, and All the Pretty Horses. After declining to write... MORE

Ted Tally (born April 9, 1952) is an American playwright and screenwriter. Born William Theodore Tally in North Carolina, Tally was educated at Yale College and the Yale School of Drama, and has also taught at each of them. His most notable credit is the screenplay for The Silence of the Lambs, which won him the Academy Award for Best Screenplay as well as the Writers Guild of America Award, Chicago Film Critics Award and an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Other scripts include White Palace, Before and After, Outbreak, and All the Pretty Horses. After declining to write the screenplay for Hannibal, Tally returned to the Hannibal Lecter franchise to write Red Dragon. When asked by Inside Film Online magazine why he opted not to write the screenplay for Hannibal, he responded, "For a lot of reasons. I didn't like the book. The director, Jonathan Demme, and I read it and were horrified. We didn't see how we could make a movie from it that we could be proud of and not feel sleazy about it, without making it a totally different story, which we could have done on our own. It was upsetting because we had a friendship with Tom Harris and felt we owed him a lot. But he was LESS