Alan Sharp

Alan Sharp (b. 1934 in Greenock) is a Scottish novelist and screenwriter.

Sharp's career began in 1965, with the publication of his acclaimed first novel, A Green Tree in Gedde. It was the first part of a proposed trilogy, but Sharp completed only one more novel, The Wind Shifts (1967), before migrating to Hollywood and becoming a much sought after screenwriter.

Sharp's most productive period was the early and mid-1970s, when five of his screenplays became high-profile Hollywood productions, most of them dealing with quintessentially American themes and characters. At least three are now recognized as classics of the New American Cinema of the 1970s: Peter Fonda's The Hired Hand, Robert Aldrich's Ulzana's Raid and Arthur Penn's Night Moves.

Since the 1980s, Sharp has been mostly writing for American television. His only film projects have been Sam Peckinpah's swan song The Osterman Weekend (1982) and Rob Roy (1995). While Rob Roy led to Sharp's rediscovery as a serious and important writer, film assignments have remained elusive. Burns, a biography of Scotland's national poet Robert Burns, written by Sharp and starring Gerard Butler and Julia Stiles, is slated for 2006.