Tithe dispute

Tithe disputes were conflicts over payment of church dues, usually those payable for agricultural produce, and were a regular source of antagonism in pre-modern England. Although these disputes were relatively common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there was an increase following the sixteenth-century Reformation; this had two major causes. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the rights to tithes were often sold into private ownership and, consequently, greater numbers of people questioned their legitimacy. Secondly, the increase in religious sectarianism and competition between the differing faiths replaced the previous authority of a Catholic church based in Rome. Many of these religious groups, particularly during the late seventeenth century, were increasingly reluctant to pay for the support of a church or clergyman that did not represent their faith. There is evidence that many of the strongest Quaker communities emerged in areas which had witnessed much of resistance to tithe payments during the early seventeenth century. Whilst many of these disputes were settled without legal recourse, many did proceed to litigation, some in central courts and others in ecclesiastical courts. Several disputes were pursued in both. Records of these disputes have left extensive detail about the antagonisms and alliances in local communities in this turbulent period of English history.
School did not hold his attention, and his last name exposed him to ridicule, so Charles Nutt found solace as a teenager in science fiction. He dropped out of high school in tenth grade to join the army. He also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, disc jockey, usher, and dishwasher before selling his first story to "Amazing Stories" in 1950. During his time as an illustrator, he briefly used the pseudonyms Charles McNutt (circa 1947/48) and E.T. Beaumont (inspired by a female artist named "Miss Beaumont" with whom he had collaborated in Everett, Washington), before settling on the name Charles Beaumont. He soon adopted this name legally and used it both personally and professionally for the rest of his life.
In 1954, "Playboy" magazine selected his story "Black Country" to be the first work of short fiction to appear in its pages. It was at this time that Beaumont started writing for television and film.
Beaumont was energetic and spontaneous, and was known to take trips (sometimes out of the country) at a moment's notice. An avid racing fan, he often enjoyed participating in or watching area speedway races, with other authors tagging along.
His cautionary fables include "The Beautiful People" (1952), about a rebellious adolescent girl in a future conformist society in which people are obligated to alter their physical appearance (adapted with friend and frequent writing partner John Tomerlin as an episode of "Twilight Zone", ("Number 12 Looks Just Like You"), and "Free Dirt" (1955), about a man who gorges on his entire vegetable harvest and dies from having consumed the magical soil he used to grow it.
His short story "The Crooked Man" (also published by "Playboy" in 1955) presents a dystopian future wherein heterosexuality is stigmatized in the same way that homosexuality then was, with heterosexual people living furtively like pre-Stonewall gay and lesbian people. In the story, a heterosexual man meets his lover in a gay orgy bar; they try to have sex in a curtained booth (she dressed in male drag) and are caught.
Beaumont wrote several scripts for "The Twilight Zone", including an adaptation of his own short story, "The Howling Man", about a prisoner who might be the Devil, and the hour-long "Valley of the Shadow", about a cloistered Utopia that refuses to share its startlingly advanced technology with the outside world.
Beaumont scripted the film "Queen of Outer Space" from an outline by Ben Hecht, deliberately writing the screenplay as a parody. According to Beaumont, the directorial style is not informed by his satiric intent. He penned one episode of the TV show "Steve Canyon", titled "Operation B-52", in which Canyon and his crew attempt to set a speed record in a B-52 accompanied by a newsman who hates Air Force pilots.
Beaumont was much admired by his colleagues (Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Roger Corman). Many of his stories have been re-released in the posthumous volumes "Best of Beaumont" (Bantam, 1982) and "The Howling Man" (Tom Doherty, 1992), and a set of previously unpublished tales, "A Touch of the Creature" (Subterranean Press, 1999). In 2004, Gauntlet Press released the first of two volumes collecting Beaumont's "Twilight Zone" scripts.
A book-length biography of Beaumont, titled "Trapped in the Twilight Zone: The Life and Times of Charles Beaumont", is due to be published by Centipede Press in late 2020.
Illness and death.
In 1963, when Beaumont was 34 and overwhelmed by numerous writing commitments, he began to suffer the effects of "a mysterious brain disease" which seemed to age him rapidly. His ability to speak, concentrate, and remember became erratic. While some people attributed all of this to Beaumont's heavy drinking, his friend and colleague John Tomerlin disagreed: "I was working closely with Chuck at the time, and we were good enough friends for me to know that alcohol by itself could not possibly account for the odd mental state that he was in."
"He was rarely well," his friend and colleague William F. Nolan later recalled. "He was thin, and kept having headaches. He used Bromo-Seltzer like most people use water. He had a big Bromo bottle with him all the time". The disease also affected his work. "He could barely sell stories, much less write. He would go unshaven to meetings with producers, which would end in disaster. [A script writer has] got to be able to think on your feet, which Chuck couldn't do anymore; and so the producers would just go, 'We're sorry, Mr. Beaumont, but we don't like the script'."
The condition might have been related to the spinal meningitis he suffered as a child. His friend and early agent Forrest J. Ackerman has asserted an alternative, that Beaumont suffered simultaneously from Alzheimer's disease and Pick's disease. This claim was supported by the UCLA Medical Staff, who subjected Beaumont to a battery of tests in the mid-1960s that indicated that it might be either Alzheimer's or Pick's. Nolan recalls that the UCLA doctors sent Beaumont home with a death sentence: "They said 'There's absolutely no treatment for this disease. It's permanent and it's terminal. He'll probably live from six months to three years with it. He'll decline and get to where he can't stand up. He won't feel any pain. In fact, he won't even know this is happening'." In Nolan's own words: "Like his character 'Walter Jameson,' Chuck just dusted away".
Several fellow writers, including Nolan and friend Jerry Sohl, began ghostwriting for Beaumont during 1963–1964, so that he could meet his many writing obligations. Privately, he insisted on splitting these fees. By 1965, however, Beaumont was too ill to even create or sell story ideas. His last on-screen writing credit was for the 1965 film "Mister Moses", officially a screenplay written with (but more likely written by) Monja Danischewsky.
On February 21, 1967, Beaumont died in Woodland Hills, California at the age of 38. His son Christopher later said that his father, "[...]looked ninety-five and was, in fact, ninety-five by every calendar except the one on your watch".
Bibliography.
"Twilight Zone" credits.
The following is a list of episodes Beaumont penned for "The Twilight Zone" (an asterisk indicates that the episode was credited to Beaumont, but ghostwritten by Jerry Sohl).
Comic books.
All collaborations with William F. Nolan.