Philip Friedman is an American author and attorney. His book Reasonable Doubt spent 15 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list He is also the co-author of a nonfiction book about the Pilates Method, co-author of the screenplay for the Warner Brothers movie Rage, and a practicing attorney.
Friedman and Dan Kleinman wrote a treatment for what became the screenplay for the movie Rage while in law school. The movie starred and was directed by George C. Scott. Friedman wrote a novel based on the same story, which was published by Atheneum Press and was a featured selection of the Literary Guild. A past member of the National Board of Mystery Writers of America, Friedman is the author of eleven other novels, including a series of legal thrillers that spent a total of 26 weeks on The New York Times' bestseller lists. Termination Order was selected for The New York Times’ list of the Best Books of 1979. Friedman's series about a squad of military investigators and troubleshooters, written under the name Philip Chase, was published as paperback-originals by Dell Books. Friedman is co-author with Gail Eisen of The Pilates Method of Physical and Mental Conditioning, the first popular exposition of the Pilates Method, which distilled the method’s philosophy to the six essential principles that have been used worldwide to describe and teach Pilates. Vogue magazine called it “one of our favorite exercise books.” Friedman's work for the stage includes the book for the unproduced musical comedy Hollywood, co-written with Peter Stern, with songs for the score written by composer Joe Reposo and lyricist Hal David, and a jazz version of The Mikado set in San Francisco, commissioned by producer Lee Guber for the Westwood Playhouse. From 1978 to 1990, Friedman was managing general partner of The High Frontier Company, a motion picture development company formed to produce a movie based on the book The High Frontier by Princeton physics professor Gerard K. O’Neill and on O’Neill’s ongoing work envisioning the possibility of creating earth-like orbital habitations and replacing earth’s polluting power plants by orbiting solar satellites, all made from materials obtained from the moon and asteroids. In 1987, Friedman created a half-hour TV series, The Story of Billy Clay, for a joint venture of Reeves Entertainment and McGraw-Hill Publishers, under the auspices of the United States Information Agency. The series was intended to be both a TV drama and an aid to intermediate and advanced learners of English. Friedman wrote the pilot script and the”bible” for 26 episodes. The pilot was screened in 20 international cities, including Paris, Rome, Bogota, and Beijing. Friedman’s 1999 novel No Higher Law, the plot of which centered on millennial religious extremism, was published in the UK and Commonwealth market by Headline. Following 9/11, Friedman shelved the US manuscript indefinitely.
