Edward Joseph Lakso was a screenwriter and producer who wrote primarily for American TV shows, singularly creating over 400 hours of television. In his days at U.C.L.A., Lakso sang opera and played jazz piano. One of his earliest writing credits was for Laramie in 1960, and he later wrote episodes of Perry Mason, Adventures In Paradise, Combat! (33 episodes), Rawhide, Dr. Kildare, 12 O'Clock High, Laredo, Mission:Impossible, The Wild Wild West, The Guns of Will Sonnett, Garrison's Gorillas (starring Ron Harper), The Virginian, Star Trek, The Big Valley, Mannix, The Mod Squad, Hawaii Five-O and The Six Million Dollar Man. Lakso also wrote several feature films, most notably Gentle Giant (1967), 43: The Richard Petty Story (1974), and co-wrote the TV movie The Pigeon (1969), which starred Ricardo Montalban.
In 1974, Lakso wrote two episodes of the Planet of the Apes TV series - "The Trap" and "The Cure" - and also wrote an unfilmed story titled "The Trial". He went on to write episodes of the Apes replacement series Khan!, as well as The Rockford Files, Starsky and Hutch, S.W.A.T., Charlie's Angels (36 episodes either as writer, producer or story editor), The Fall Guy and Airwolf. Lakso retired in 1986, and died of complications from Parkinson's disease at his home in Beverly Hills, California, on 23 May 2009.
Notes[]
- Edward J. Lakso's surname is frequently mis-spelled 'Lasko'.
External Links[]
- Edward J. Lakso profile at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
- Edward J. Lakso biography at MemoryAlpha, The Star Trek Wiki
- Edward J. Lakso biography at the Boot Hill blog