Lewis Greifer

Who was Lewis Greifer?

Lewis Greifer was a writer for television, film, and radio.

After wartime service in the Royal Air Force, he pursued a career in journalism and joined the London Evening Standard. He contributed sketches for radio, including The Goon Show amongst others. A strong record on television writing in the 1950s and 1960s made his career; and by 1969 he diversified somewhat and devised the panel game show Whodunnit! for the BBC.

Greifer also wrote episodes of The Prisoner, Crossroads, and the initial draft of the Tom Baker Doctor Who story Pyramids of Mars. The latter script had to be radically rewritten by script-editor Robert Holmes, who decided to use the pseudonym Stephen Harris on the final product. Greifer had meanwhile returned to teach at the University of Tel Aviv, and had little contact with television in his remaining years.