leave of absence and came out to L.A. He was living at the Four Seasons.
He’d given himself six months. He’d be at the Four Seasons for six months and in that time he would have as many meetings with television producers and executives and showrunners as possible. If it didn’t work out in six months, he’d go back to Chicago.
I got a note from him about a year later. He was back with the law firm in Chicago. It hadn’t worked out in L.A.
“But I’ll always know that I tried,” he wrote. “I didn’t futz around. I really, really went for it.”
I remembered what I had told him when we met: “Stop running around meeting people. Go back to Chicago and write something.”
I hoped that’s what he was doing.
You, too, can con the MPAA .
W hen the MPAA ratings board saw Basic Instinct , they gave the movie an NC-17.
As long as Sharon uncrossed her legs, the board told us, the NC-17 would stand.
I told the studio PR people to tell the MPAA that this wasn’t a sex scene; this was a confrontation scene between an empowered and liberated modern woman and her male-piggy poe/leece inquisitors.
The “empowerment” argument swayed the MPAA and saved the beaver. Paul Verhoeven only had to take a few snips from the, um, focal point of the scene to satisfy the ratings board.
You never know how they’ll film the scene that you wrote .
I wrote an extravagant dance sequence for Jennifer Beals in Flashdance .
Some studio wizard suggested cutting the sequence in half and rewriting it, but I convinced them that a big dance movie had to have a lot of dance in it.
Since Jenny couldn’t dance very well and certainly couldn’t do a big dance sequence, the director hired a “dance double” for Jenny named Marine Jahan.
But it still wasn’t enough to convince the audience that Jenny Beals could dance, because Marine Jihan couldn’t do the floor spins.
So the producers brought in someone who could do the floor spins perfectly—a guy, who had to wear a wig and shave his legs … but who refused to shave his mustache.
If you slow the film down and look very closely, you can see Jenny Beals spinning around, wearing leotards and a mustache.
Don’t die with the wrong people .
T hat’s what happened to screenwriter/novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose last girlfriend was gossip columnist Sheilah Graham.
Graham had once been previously married to a man who was twenty-five years older and arranged dates for her with wealthy men. She and her husband lived off the gifts given to her by the wealthy men she went out with.
To Do a Belushi
To OD on drugs, like actor John.
Some people do, temporarily, know some things about making hit movies .
P roducer Jerry Bruckheimer, producer Brian Grazer, the late producer Don Simpson, producer/director George Lucas, and producer/director Steven Spielberg all know some things.
Producer/director Ivan Reitman knew some things, but he has forgotten them. So has Francis Ford Coppola.
After Flashdance, Jagged Edge , and Basic Instinct , I knew some things about making hit movies, too.
But after Sliver, Showgirls , and Jade , I, like Ivan and Francis, forgot what I knew.
P ERK OF SUCCESS: YOU, TOO, CAN GET FRANKIE AVALON TO SING FOR YOU
He knew who I was, and somebody at our table, as a joke, told him that it was my wife Geraldine’s birthday. So Frankie Avalon sang “Happy Birthday” for her .
It wasn’t her birthday at all, but she’d loved Frankie Avalon as a teenager, and when he sang happy birthday to her, she cried. She told me after our divorce that it was one of her greatest thrills as a screenwriter’s wife .
Billy Wilder was a sexist pig .
S creenwriter/director Billy Wilder had a recurring fantasy that he told friends about: He wanted to invent a mattress that would make a woman disappear after he’d made love to her.
In her place would appear three of his friends around a card table.
Wilder said that if men were forced to choose between sex with a woman and
He’d given himself six months. He’d be at the Four Seasons for six months and in that time he would have as many meetings with television producers and executives and showrunners as possible. If it didn’t work out in six months, he’d go back to Chicago.
I got a note from him about a year later. He was back with the law firm in Chicago. It hadn’t worked out in L.A.
“But I’ll always know that I tried,” he wrote. “I didn’t futz around. I really, really went for it.”
I remembered what I had told him when we met: “Stop running around meeting people. Go back to Chicago and write something.”
I hoped that’s what he was doing.
You, too, can con the MPAA .
W hen the MPAA ratings board saw Basic Instinct , they gave the movie an NC-17.
As long as Sharon uncrossed her legs, the board told us, the NC-17 would stand.
I told the studio PR people to tell the MPAA that this wasn’t a sex scene; this was a confrontation scene between an empowered and liberated modern woman and her male-piggy poe/leece inquisitors.
The “empowerment” argument swayed the MPAA and saved the beaver. Paul Verhoeven only had to take a few snips from the, um, focal point of the scene to satisfy the ratings board.
You never know how they’ll film the scene that you wrote .
I wrote an extravagant dance sequence for Jennifer Beals in Flashdance .
Some studio wizard suggested cutting the sequence in half and rewriting it, but I convinced them that a big dance movie had to have a lot of dance in it.
Since Jenny couldn’t dance very well and certainly couldn’t do a big dance sequence, the director hired a “dance double” for Jenny named Marine Jahan.
But it still wasn’t enough to convince the audience that Jenny Beals could dance, because Marine Jihan couldn’t do the floor spins.
So the producers brought in someone who could do the floor spins perfectly—a guy, who had to wear a wig and shave his legs … but who refused to shave his mustache.
If you slow the film down and look very closely, you can see Jenny Beals spinning around, wearing leotards and a mustache.
Don’t die with the wrong people .
T hat’s what happened to screenwriter/novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose last girlfriend was gossip columnist Sheilah Graham.
Graham had once been previously married to a man who was twenty-five years older and arranged dates for her with wealthy men. She and her husband lived off the gifts given to her by the wealthy men she went out with.
To Do a Belushi
To OD on drugs, like actor John.
Some people do, temporarily, know some things about making hit movies .
P roducer Jerry Bruckheimer, producer Brian Grazer, the late producer Don Simpson, producer/director George Lucas, and producer/director Steven Spielberg all know some things.
Producer/director Ivan Reitman knew some things, but he has forgotten them. So has Francis Ford Coppola.
After Flashdance, Jagged Edge , and Basic Instinct , I knew some things about making hit movies, too.
But after Sliver, Showgirls , and Jade , I, like Ivan and Francis, forgot what I knew.
P ERK OF SUCCESS: YOU, TOO, CAN GET FRANKIE AVALON TO SING FOR YOU
He knew who I was, and somebody at our table, as a joke, told him that it was my wife Geraldine’s birthday. So Frankie Avalon sang “Happy Birthday” for her .
It wasn’t her birthday at all, but she’d loved Frankie Avalon as a teenager, and when he sang happy birthday to her, she cried. She told me after our divorce that it was one of her greatest thrills as a screenwriter’s wife .
Billy Wilder was a sexist pig .
S creenwriter/director Billy Wilder had a recurring fantasy that he told friends about: He wanted to invent a mattress that would make a woman disappear after he’d made love to her.
In her place would appear three of his friends around a card table.
Wilder said that if men were forced to choose between sex with a woman and
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