Earl W. Wallace (October 23, 1942 – May 12, 2018) was an American screen and television writer who began his career in the 1970s writing episodes of the hit CBS Western series Gunsmoke, one of which inspired him, his wife Pamela, and William Kelley to develop the screenplay for the 1985 film Witness.
[1][2] Wallace's first submission to Gunsmoke came while he was city editor of a regional newspaper, the Thousand Oaks Acorn.
The professor submitted Wallace's teleplay to the Gunsmoke writing staff, who accepted it and ran it as an episode.
They invited Wallace to submit further work and eventually offered him a regular position on their writing staff.
He also wrote episodes of How the West Was Won, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected, and several television movies, including Wild and Wooly, If These Walls Could Talk, A Murderous Affair: The Carolyn Warmus Story, and Rose Hill.