Born in New York City and educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard, Nelson Gidding said that he'd been interested in writing ever since he was a child and had a poem published in the Boy Scouts magazine ("That was as recently as the mid-'20s!" he laughed). A POW during World War II, Gidding began writing his first (and only) book End Over End while in prison camp; after the war's end, he segued into TV work ("Suspense, " "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, " many others) and ultimately into movies. His list of film credits includes such well-respected titles as ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (1959), THE HAUNTING and NINE HOURS TO RAMA (both 1963), THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971), THE HINDENBURG (1975) and (with co-writer Don Mankiewicz) the Oscar®-nominated screenplay for I WANT TO LIVE! (1958), the story of the last years of real-life prostitute Barbara Graham (Susan Hayward) and her gas chamber execution on murder charges. I WANT TO LIVE! was Gidding's first film for director Robert Wise, with whom he worked on several subsequent occasions. He taught a class in screenwriting at the University of Southern California.  Nominated for Writing (Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium) 1958: I WANT TO LIVE! (w. Don Mankiewicz) 1 nomination