“I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws.”
                             S.J. Perelman

William M. Akers

Akers is a Lifetime Member of the WGA and has written screenplays and television for twenty years. Rare among how-to screenplay book authors, Akers has actually had his work produced.

His script for ERNEST RIDES AGAIN, fifth in the legendary Ernest series of comedies, was produced and directed by John C. Cherry. The film starred Jim Varney and Linda Kash. THE WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE was produced by Margaret Matheson and Mark Forstater for Zenith Productions, London. Directed by Stuart Orme, it starred Stephanie Beacham, Mel Smith, Jane Horrocks, Richard O'Brien, and Geraldine James. Akers's screenplay for THE WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE was nominated for a CableAce. 

He adapted Simon Murray's million selling non-fiction account of his five years in the French Foreign Legion as SIMON: AN ENGLISH LEGIONNAIRE, an epic love story set against the Algerian revolution. It was independently produced and directed by Martin Huberty and stars Paul Fox and Kate Maberly. 

He has written feature screenplays for Bruce Gilbert & MGM, John C. Cherry & Disney, and Jon Avnet & Universal Studios.

Akers's screenplay 105 DEGREES AND RISING, about the Fall of Saigon, is currently under option to Echo Lake Productions and Overture Studios. Jon Amiel is attached to direct and Kevin Kline and Maria Bello are attached to appear. SIGNS FOLLOWING, a story of snakehandling and redemption, has been optioned by Max Wong at Pink Slip Pictures.

In television, he has written for LOIS AND CLARK starring Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher for Warner Bros. television and ABC, STRANGE LUCK for Karl Schaefer / Unreality, Inc. for CBS, which starred Frances Fisher and D.B. Sweeney. Akers was a staff writer on the original EERIE, INDIANA for NBC, produced by Karl Schaefer / Unreality, Inc. He was supervising producer of MOTOR MADNESS for TNN and William Byrd Productions. 

Most recently, he co-produced and did second unit photography on the feature documentary THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF THE REAL BEVERLY HILLBILLIES for Dub Cornett and Herzog / Cowen productions, Los Angeles. He co-produced URIM AND THUMMIM, a feature documentary for Afterglow Productions, Nashville, which showed at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival and the San Fransisco Film Festival. 

He speaks reasonably decent French, and was a Jeopardy! contestant. He didn’t win.