Joel Oliansky, 66; TV and Film Writer Won Emmy for ‘The Law’

Joel Oliansky, writer and director of such films as “The Competition,” starring Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving in 1980, and writer of the television miniseries “The Law” and “Masada,” has died. He was 66.

Oliansky, who also drafted the screenplay of the 1988 biopic “Bird,” about jazzman Charlie Parker, died Monday in Los Angeles of heart failure, said his sister, literary agent Lynn Pleshette.

The writer’s scripting of the 1970 TV program “The Senator,” starring Hal Holbrook, earned an Emmy, and “Masada,” with Peter O’Toole, earned Oliansky a Writers Guild Award. His efforts on “The Law,” starring Judd Hirsch, earned Emmy, Writers Guild and Humanitas awards.

Born in New York City, Oliansky earned a bachelor’s degree at Hofstra University and a master’s at Yale. He was playwright in residence at Yale before coming to Hollywood in 1964.

His considerable directing credits include episodes of the TV series “Emergency,” “Kojak,” “Quincy,” “Bring ‘Em Back Alive,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and the specials “The Silence at Bethany” and “In Defense of a Married Man.”

Oliansky was best known for his writing, which includes a play, “Bedford Forrest,” produced at the Eugene O’Neill Festival, and a 1966 novel, “Shame, Shame on the Johnson Boys!” about the folk music boom.

Asked about the importance of technical research to his screenwriting while working on “The Law,” Oliansky told The Times he had observed and consulted a public defender, but that “It’s human involvement and dramatic license that shapes the story.”

Oliansky expected to follow his modest success with “The Competition,” a film about two classical pianists falling in love at a San Francisco music contest, by writing and directing a biographical movie about Parker.

A jazz buff, Oliansky had heard the sax player perform in 1955. He had talked with Parker’s former wife, Rebecca; his last companion, Chan; and a trumpeter, Red Rodney, who had played with Parker. Oliansky wrote what he acknowledged was an overly long draft screenplay that would have run three hours. He held out hopes of directing the Parker movie when Richard Pryor expressed an interest in playing the innovative saxophonist.

But Pryor backed out. Several directors were approached and the property switched studios. “Bird” was finally made by Warner Bros., starring Forest Whitaker and directed by Clint Eastwood.

Although Oliansky clearly admired Eastwood, he also regretted having so little control over the finished product. If he couldn’t direct, he told The Times in 1988, he at least would have preferred to rework his own script.

“Eastwood knows as much about jazz as I do, if not more,” Oliansky said when the film was released. “He has as much passion for jazz as I do, if not more. Where we may differ is in how much we know about screenplays. Eastwood cut 20 pages from my script and he did a wonderful job. But what I saw was a film of my first draft.”

A favorable Times review of the film noted that Oliansky had “deftly constructed the script along jazz lines.”

In addition to his sister, Oliansky is survived by two children.

A memorial service is scheduled for 1 p.m. Aug. 9 at the Catalina Bar & Grill, 1640 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood.