In Memoriam that major plot points and characters would have to be cut. The next day Clavell handed Eric a copy of the novel with whole sections torn out. Eric wrote the script from that copy and went on to produce the 12-hour miniseries in 1980. The ratings were higher than those for any other miniseries up to that time with the sole exception of Roots. Shōgun won 3 of its 14 Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Miniseries, and all three of its Golden Globe nominations, including Best TV Series, Drama. It was the biggest hit of Eric’s career. Eric studied playwrighting at YSD, but when his father, screenwriter Leonardo Bercovici ’31, who wrote The Bishop’s Wife and Portrait of Jennie, was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, the family moved to Europe. Eric’s first professional job was cowriter for the 1961 film Square of Violence, directed by his father, and starring Broderick Crawford and Bibi Andersson. As a feature film writer, Eric’s work ranged from such classics as Hell in the Pacific, a 1968 World War II film starring Lee Marvin and Toshirō Mifune and directed by John Boorman, to Change of Habit, a 1969 musical starring Elvis Presley and Mary Tyler Moore, to The Culpepper Cattle Co., a 1972 revisionist Western whose tagline read: “How Many Men Do You Have to Kill Before You Become the Great American Cowboy?” Switching to television in the late 1970s into the 1980s, Eric wrote episodes for Hawaii Five-O, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and I Spy, and created the series Assignment Vienna and its pilot, Assignment: Munich. In 1977, he adapted John Ehrlichman’s novel, The Company, into a miniseries titled Washington: Behind Closed Doors. Eric also wrote crime novels: Wolftrap, So Little Cause for Caroline, and Tread Lightly, My Dear. Although this was less lucrative than writing for television, Eric didn’t care. “When you write scripts, the minute you write ‘fade out’, all these people—directors, producers, studios, some
times other writers, networks—enter your life,” he said in a 1981 interview with The New York Times. “When you write a book, you are all these people.” Eric Bercovici was born on February 27, 1933 and died on February 9, 2014 at his home in Kaneohe, HI. He was 80 years old. He is survived by his wife, Chiho Adachi, whom he met while making Shōgun, and their three sons Luca, Hilary and Jacob; his half-brothers Adam and David; his half-sister Christina; and two grandchildren.
Eric Bercovici ’55
George Morrison
Acting Teacher
Born in Evanston, IL in 1928, George Morrison ’53 developed an interest in acting at a young age, and joined the Children’s Theatre of Evanston. The Theatre was founded by Winifred Ward, a professor at Northwestern University who developed the fields of children’s theatre and creative dramatics. By age 13, George was playing Tom Sawyer in an elaborate production with a cast of Northwestern University students. Upon graduating from high school, he spent three summers in a stock company directed by the legendary Alvina Krause, where he played parts ranging from John “Ernest” Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest to Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. After a two-year stint in the United States Army, George attended the University of Chicago, where he became close friends with Mike Nichols and Paul Sills. He would continue to work with these friends throughout his life. He enrolled in Yale School of Drama as a directing student and then moved to New York in 1953, where he YA L E S C H O O L O F D R A M A A N N UA L 2 014
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