Terry Southern (May 1, 1924 – October 29, 1995) was an American author, essayist, screenwriter, and university
lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style. Part of the
Paris postwar literary movement in the 1950s and a companion to
Beat writers in
Greenwich Village, Southern was also at the center of
Swinging London in the 1960s and helped to change the style and substance of American films in the 1970s. In the 1980s he wrote for
Saturday Night Live and lectured on screenwriting at several universities in New York.