Gary Tigerman

Gary Richard Tigerman was born in Los Angeles on Dec. 30, 1947 but his dad, Orville, was a no-show, busy piloting a DC-3 for United Airlines. Gary grew up in the San Fernando Valley biking to public school, splashing around the backyard pool, and secretly reading Bradbury and Heinlein under the covers with a flashlight. He channeled his teenage confusion and angst into songwriting and guitar-playing in rock bands, until finally discovering drama in high school.

A college drop-out, Gary found work as an actor playing teenage roles in movies and in TV series like “Room 222” and “Dragnet”, including a sterling stint as “Oggo the Cave Boy” in Lost In Space. In protest of the Vietnam war, he applied for recognition as a conscientious objector and was ultimately forced to refuse induction. The Supreme Court split 5-4 against taking up his case, landing young Tigerman in the slammer for a year and a day with good time earned by volunteering as guinea pig for a NASA experiment.

Gary got serious about writing songs after prison, becoming a staff song writer at Warner/Tamerlane, and performing on Saturday Night Live. Taking a break from professional struggles, he studied Buddhism and poetry with Allen Ginsberg in Colorado at Naropa Institute’s Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied Poetics.

Continuing his Buddhist studies back in L.A., Gary fell in love with a floozy meditation instructor, Wendy Cohen Ferraris, and in 1980 they married and gave birth to son Gabriel Harper. Despite Leon Redbone recording a chart single of Gary’s tune “Seduced”, winning awards and making good money writing jingles, and having songs covered by legendary blues band Canned Heat; in 1990 screenwriting sunk its Hollywood hooks in deep. Years of perseverance and countless spec scripts later, the obsession that became The Orion Protocol also created the opportunity for Tigerman to write his first novel.

Now published by Harper/Collins under the Morrow Books imprint, The Orion Protocol is the first book in a series. And Richard Dreyfuss’ production company has optioned the film rights.

Gary still lives in Los Angeles with Wendy, a creative director in advertising, and their son Gabe, who recently graduated from Vassar College with a degree in History and his own passion for acting.