Ib Melchior(1917-2015)

The son of the Wagnerian tenor and film star Lauritz Melchior, Ib Melchior was born and educated in Denmark. After graduating from the University of Copenhagen, he joined the English Players, a British theatrical company, and toured Europe with the troupe, first as an actor and later as stage manager and co-director. Just prior to the outbreak of World War II, Melchior came to the U.S. with the troupe to do a Broadway show. After 1941's "Day of Infamy", he volunteered his services to the United States Armed Forces, operating with the "cloak-and-dagger" O.S.S. and the United States Military Intelligence Service. He also served in the European Theater of Operations as a military intelligence investigator attached to the Counter Intelligence Corps. For his work in the E.T.O., Melchior was decorated by the United States Army as well as by the King of Denmark. After the war, Melchior became active in television, directing some 500 New York-based TV shows ranging from the musical "Perry Como Show" to the dramatic documentary series "The March of Medicine." Beginning in the late 1950s, he wrote a number of low-budget science-fiction films, among them "The Angry Red Planet", "Journey to the Seventh Planet" and "The Time Travelers". In 1976, he was awarded a Golden Scroll for Best Writing by the Academy of Science-Fiction (for body of work).