second is the tale of the man-eating lions of Tsavo, which was well known around the world, just not in the United States. In Africa, it is the most famous story of high adventure. A hunt for wild animals is called a “stalk,” and no less an aficionado than PresidentTheodore Roosevelt termed it “the greatest stalk of which we have any record.”
More recently, in his splendid book Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years, the Oxford historianFelipe Fernandez-Armesto has written over seven hundred pages on what’s been going on Down Here for the last ten centuries.
Well, two of those pages are about the lions of Tsavo.
Why were Butch and Sundance unknown for so long? I think because they ran away to South America when the Superposse came after them, instead of shooting it out, which is what western heroes always did, since westerns are based on confrontations.
I think the reason the Tsavo lions are unknown here is because, when Americans go to the movies, they want solutions to questions, not more questions. The Tsavo story, something that never happened before and has not happened since, is still, at its dark heart, a mystery.
And always will be …
I first heard about them in July of 1984, my initial trip to Africa, at one of my favorite spots on earth, the Masai Mara Plains (it is in Kenya,and when the land becomes Tanzania, the name becomes the Serengeti). It was night, a bunch of people were sitting by a fire. And then, in that magical semidarkness, someone began telling the story of what happened at Tsavo back in 1898. I clearly remembered that I turned to Ilene, my good wife of twenty-some years, and said something I had never said before: “That’s a movie.”
My plan then was simple—to research the story back in America, to return to Africa at the proper time for further work, and then to write it as an original screenplay. Life, however, as most of us are continually shocked to discover, has plans of its own which tend to take precedence. I did a lot of research when I returned home, yes. But our marriage ended, the further trips to Africa never took place, and the lions found a small corner of my brain, growled, and went to sleep.
Dissolve: five years later. It’s 1989.
I got a call from my agent,Robert Bookman at CAA. “You remember that lion story?” I said I sure did. “Well, there’s some interest in the project at Paramount. Do you have a problem flying to L.A. to try for the job?”
I said I had zero problem flying to L.A.
But there was indeed a problem.
I have a bad back and it tends to go into spasm when it chooses—crippling me, usually for a week or two. And it had gone out just before Bookman called. When that happens, the worst thing is having to sit in a car for a long time. Having to sit in an airplane for a long time also isn’t so terrific. But I made the trip the next day, met with the Paramount Guys. The usual bullshit grunts of hello. Then it was my turn to sell.
This is not something for which I am noted. I have only tried one “pitch” in my life, and that was for friends, and I was so awful I quit halfway through. Now I was sitting in a room with a bunch of strangers. More precisely, they were sitting in the room.
Me, I was lying on the floor.
Pretty much in spasm.
Looking up at them.
I said I had no idea how to write the movie. I said I had no idea yet what the story was. But I also said I knew what the story should be: a cross between Jaws and Lawrence of Arabia.
I said they could doubt my talent to be able to successfully write that movie, but they could never doubt my passion for wanting to try. I mean, shit, I was flying six thousand miles more or less doubled over—that had to be indicative of something. (I was told that the meeting, because of my position, achieved a certain brief notoriety.)
At any rate, I was hired.
I delivered the first draft on April Fool’s Day, 1990. I always aim for that date—after all, we are talking about the
More recently, in his splendid book Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years, the Oxford historianFelipe Fernandez-Armesto has written over seven hundred pages on what’s been going on Down Here for the last ten centuries.
Well, two of those pages are about the lions of Tsavo.
Why were Butch and Sundance unknown for so long? I think because they ran away to South America when the Superposse came after them, instead of shooting it out, which is what western heroes always did, since westerns are based on confrontations.
I think the reason the Tsavo lions are unknown here is because, when Americans go to the movies, they want solutions to questions, not more questions. The Tsavo story, something that never happened before and has not happened since, is still, at its dark heart, a mystery.
And always will be …
I first heard about them in July of 1984, my initial trip to Africa, at one of my favorite spots on earth, the Masai Mara Plains (it is in Kenya,and when the land becomes Tanzania, the name becomes the Serengeti). It was night, a bunch of people were sitting by a fire. And then, in that magical semidarkness, someone began telling the story of what happened at Tsavo back in 1898. I clearly remembered that I turned to Ilene, my good wife of twenty-some years, and said something I had never said before: “That’s a movie.”
My plan then was simple—to research the story back in America, to return to Africa at the proper time for further work, and then to write it as an original screenplay. Life, however, as most of us are continually shocked to discover, has plans of its own which tend to take precedence. I did a lot of research when I returned home, yes. But our marriage ended, the further trips to Africa never took place, and the lions found a small corner of my brain, growled, and went to sleep.
Dissolve: five years later. It’s 1989.
I got a call from my agent,Robert Bookman at CAA. “You remember that lion story?” I said I sure did. “Well, there’s some interest in the project at Paramount. Do you have a problem flying to L.A. to try for the job?”
I said I had zero problem flying to L.A.
But there was indeed a problem.
I have a bad back and it tends to go into spasm when it chooses—crippling me, usually for a week or two. And it had gone out just before Bookman called. When that happens, the worst thing is having to sit in a car for a long time. Having to sit in an airplane for a long time also isn’t so terrific. But I made the trip the next day, met with the Paramount Guys. The usual bullshit grunts of hello. Then it was my turn to sell.
This is not something for which I am noted. I have only tried one “pitch” in my life, and that was for friends, and I was so awful I quit halfway through. Now I was sitting in a room with a bunch of strangers. More precisely, they were sitting in the room.
Me, I was lying on the floor.
Pretty much in spasm.
Looking up at them.
I said I had no idea how to write the movie. I said I had no idea yet what the story was. But I also said I knew what the story should be: a cross between Jaws and Lawrence of Arabia.
I said they could doubt my talent to be able to successfully write that movie, but they could never doubt my passion for wanting to try. I mean, shit, I was flying six thousand miles more or less doubled over—that had to be indicative of something. (I was told that the meeting, because of my position, achieved a certain brief notoriety.)
At any rate, I was hired.
I delivered the first draft on April Fool’s Day, 1990. I always aim for that date—after all, we are talking about the
Similar Books
