George Markstein

George Markstein
Markstein, interviewed in 1984 for the Channel 4 documentary "Six Into One"
Born	(1926-08-29)29 August 1926 Berlin, Germany
Died	15 January 1987(1987-01-15) (aged 60) England, United Kingdom
Occupation	Screenwriter and television producer.
Period	1966–1986
Genre	Drama, adventure, science fiction

George Markstein (29 August 1926 – 15 January 1987) was a British journalist and subsequent writer of thrillers and teleplays. He was the script editor of the British series The Prisoner for the first thirteen episodes, and appeared briefly in its title sequence. Markstein also wrote for or story-edited other television series, specialising in espionage stories, and jointly ran a successful literary agency for screenwriters.

In 1926, according to his friend Sidney Allinson, writing in 'George Markstein and The Prisoner', Markstein was born in Berlin, Germany, but emigrated with his Jewish family to England with the rise of Nazism. It is likely that he lived in the United States during his youth, then moved to Britain. Markstein worked as a newspaper reporter for the Southport Guardian of Southport England in 1947. Markstein later became a journalist for the American military tabloid, the Overseas Weekly. Due to its scandal-driven content, the paper's U.S. G.I. readership referred to the paper as the Over Sexed Weekly. The masthead of the newspaper lists Markstein as head of the London desk.

He moved into television, first on the factual series This Week, before acting as story consultant and contributing to multiple episodes of ITC's Court Martial (1966), and then joining Danger Man as story consultant for the last black-and-white episode (1966), then story editor for the two episodes which were made in colour (1967). Around this time he also wrote four episodes for Rediffusion's children's drama series Send Foster (1967), and worked on the script for Peter Yates's Robbery (1967), a fictionalised feature film based on the 1963 Great Train Robbery.