Born in New York City, Louis Heyward was headed for a career as a lawyer while at the same time moonlighting as a writer of scripts for various radio series. After a six-year Air Force hitch, he landed a job with the Associated Press but continued to dabble with radio scripts, and later found an eight-year home as a comedy writer on daytime TV's The Garry Moore Show (1950). Other jobs in New York TV included writing comedy material and skits for The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952) (the program was Emmy-nominated in 1956, the same year Heyward won the Sylvania Award as its top comedy writer) and developing The Dick Clark Show (1958). Migrating to Hollywood, he held executive posts at 20th Century-Fox and MCA before joining forces with American International Pictures, first as a writer, then as director of motion picture and TV development and ultimately as head of the company's London-based foreign arm. He later became the vice-president of development at Barry & Enright, producers of game shows, features and TV movies.