John Kruse
Writing
Biography
John Kruse (1921–2004) was an English film and television screenwriter, director and novelist. He is mostly remembered for his work on ITC classic TV series The Saint, as well as several films of the franchise, and as the author of the best-selling novel Red Omega. John Kruse was born in England and educated at Harrow. His father, Jack Frederick Conrad Kruse, was a captain in the Royal Navy and close associate of tycoon Lord Rothermere, founder of the Daily Mail. A wealthy couple, Kruse's parents lived between London and the French Riviera, but the 1929 Crash greatly damaged their fortune. During World War II, John served as a liaison officer in India, the Middle East and Italy. After the war, he returned to England to find his home bombed, his parents dead, and no family business. At the age of twenty-six, he began a new career from scratch. He joined Pinewood Film Studios as a clapper boy and, during the next seven years, progressed to become cameraman, at the same time working nights to perfect his writing. His short stories began to appear in magazines in Britain and the United States in the early fifties; some of these stories were later developed into screenplays. Hell Drivers (1957) was his first credited film, based on his own short story and co-scripted with director Cy Endfield. By 1954 Kruse had switched to full-time scriptwriting, working in over a dozen of films. Starting in the 1960s, he also wrote many hundreds of episodes for British and international TV shows, including The Avengers, Shoestring, Colditz, The Persuaders!, and most famously The Saint, starring Roger Moore. In 1981, Kruse abandoned screenwriting and moved to Almuñécar, in Granada, Spain, where he began a new career as a novelist. He published three novels. The first one, Red Omega (1981), became a best-seller—a Cold War spy thriller involving a CIA plot to murder Stalin using a rogue agent from Extremadura who survived the gulags. It was later followed by a sequel, Long Live the Dead, and Hour of the Lily, an epic story of love and war in Russian-occupied Afghanistan. After these three novels, Kruse took up painting. He died in Almuñécar in 2004.
Known For

A quirky spy show of the adventures of eccentrically suave British Agent John Steed and his predominantly female partners. Jonathan Steed - an urbane, proper gentleman spy - teams with various assistants throughout the series' run, including Dr. David Keel, Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Tara King, to repeatedly save the world from diabolical schemes plotted by equally diabolical evil-doers (among them robots and man-eating monsters).
The Avengers

Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.
The Saint

The lives of Bodie and Doyle, top agents for Britain's CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), and their controller, George Cowley. The mandate of CI5 was to fight terrorism and similar high-profile crimes. Cowley, a hard ex-MI5 operative, hand-picked each of his men. Bodie is a cynical ex-SAS paratrooper and mercenary whose nature ran to controlled violence, while his partner, Doyle, comes to CI5 from the regular police force, and is more of an open minded liberal. Their relationship is often contentious, but they are the top men in their field, and the ones to whom Cowley always assigned to the toughest cases.
The Professionals

An English aristocrat and an American millionaire come together to tackle crime.
The Persuaders!

The Protectors is a British television series, an action thriller created by Gerry Anderson. It was Anderson's second TV series using live actors as opposed to electronic marionettes, and also his second to be firmly set in contemporary times. It was also the only Gerry Anderson produced television series that was not of the fantasy or science fiction genres. It was produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment production company. Despite not featuring marionettes or any real science fiction elements, The Protectors became one of Anderson's most popular productions, easily winning a renewal for a second season. A third season was in the planning stages when the show's major sponsor pulled out, forcing its cancellation. The Protectors first aired in 1972 and 1973, and ran to 52 episodes over two series, each 25 minutes long - making it one of the last series of this type to be produced in a half-hour format. It starred Robert Vaughn as Harry Rule, Nyree Dawn Porter as the Contessa Caroline di Contini, and Tony Anholt as Paul Buchet. Episodes often featured prominent guest actors.
The Protectors

Follow the swashbuckling exploits of Simon Templar, a modern-day Robin Hood of sorts.
Return of the Saint

The adventures of Interpol policemen Duval and Mornay as they fought against international drug-running, homicide, robbery and forgery.
Interpol Calling

Shoestring is a BBC detective drana set in Bristol and starring Trevor Eve as private detective Eddie Shoestring, who operatee his own show on Radio West, the local radio station. The programme ran between 30 September 1979 and 21 December 1980, in two series with 21 hour-long episodes. Eve opted not to return after two series, as he wanted to diversify into theatre, so the production team changed the setting to Jersey and created Bergerac, also following a detective returning to work after a bad period in his life.
Shoestring

The Human Jungle is a British TV series about a psychiatrist, made for ABC Television by the small production company Independent Artists for transmission on ITV. Starring Herbert Lom, it ran for two series which were first transmitted during 1963 and 1965.
The Human Jungle

Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans was set in New York's Hudson Valley during the French and Indian war in the 1750's and depicted the adventures of Hawkeye and his Indian blood brother Chingachgook, the last member of the Mohican tribe. The series based on stories by James Fenimore Cooper.
Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans

The Adventures of William Tell is a British swashbuckler adventure series, first broadcast on the ITV network in 1958, and produced by ITC Entertainment.
The Adventures of William Tell

Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television from mid-1968.
Armchair Theatre
An anthology of eleven dramas using confessions as a central theme.
Confession

An ex-con trying to go clean ends up working for a crooked trucking company swindling money.
Hell Drivers

In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.
Anna Karenina

After a schoolgirl is raped while taking a short cut through the local woods, and another murdered a few days later, the police are baffled. With the help of a reporter, and against the wishes of a local psychologist, a young schoolteacher uses herself as bait to lure the perpetrator out.
Assault

Simon Templar is on holiday in Naples when a small uproar on a lunch table draws his attention. An English tourist attempts to greet an Italian businessman as an old friend, but the Italian refuses to acknowledge the greeting and claims never to have met him.
Vendetta for The Saint

Simon Templar is hired by a friend in the book publishing trade to protect one of his stars, a secretive recluse named Amos Klein who writes a popular (and lucrative) series of adventure novels about a manly and suave spy.
The Fiction Makers

A British family takes revenge into its own hands in avenging their recently slain daughter.
Revenge

Two episodes of the TV series "The Persuaders" joined into a movie. Two playboys investigate crimes along the French Riviera.