Bill Lancaster

William Henry Lancaster (November 17, 1947 – January 4, 1997) was an American screenwriter and actor. Early life He was born November 17, 1947, in Los Angeles, California, the son of Burt Lancaster (1913–1994) and Norma Anderson (1917–1988). He contracted polio at an early age, leaving one leg shorter than the other. Career Lancaster, who resembled his famous father at the time, guest-starred in an episode of the television series The Big Valley in 1967. Lancaster played the role of "King", the boyfriend of a murdered college student in The Midnight Man (1974), a mystery film starring and co-directed by his father. Lancaster's best-known work is his adapted screenplay for John Carpenter's The Thing. He also penned the original screenplays for two of The Bad News Bears films. In 1982, he worked on a first-draft script of an adaptation of Stephen King's novel Firestarter for Carpenter to direct. Months later of the same year, Carpenter hired Bill Phillips to work on a rewrite of Lancaster's draft. When The Thing did not match the studio's financial expectations, Universal replaced Carpenter with Mark L. Lester and both drafts were scrapped in favor of Stanley Mann's draft.