Before my life and career was divided into the academic holy trinity of Teaching/Service/Scholarship, it was divided into the three creative pursuits of a professional screenwriter: Original/Adapted/Uncredited.

Screenwriting was, of course, its own pursuit - and that pursuit was primarily 1) Getting it sold, 2) getting it good, and 3) getting it made.

But looking back I see that so much of the work I did then was preparing me for what I do now. I averaged about one paid project a year for my 25 years in Hollywood. Below are a few of the most personally and professionally consequential.  (I also wrote and directed a short play in 2013.)

I researched, outlined, and wrote several drafts of this script in the years 2002 and 2003. Marshall Herskovitz was set to direct it but the project fell apart in casting and was never made.

This is technically an historical adaptation, but I put this in the original category because it felt like an original - to me. The project originated with a discussion of the historical inaccuracy of the classic 1994 film "Becket," based on a play of the same title. The story of the broken friendship between Henry II and Thomas Becket is well known in its basics, but not in its nuance and details. The 1964 film completely ignored the important role of Henry's queen Eleanor of Aquitaine and the destructive manipulations of the English nobility. I was very proud of my work on this script and hope to revive it in the future. 

Click here or on the picture to see a late draft of the script.

This was my first broadcast network TV project.  The producers were impressed by my adaptation of "The Starlite Drive-in" and hired me to rewrite this biopic of Ingrid Bergman directly from the book on which it was based,

I found the story of Ingrid Bergman leaving her controlling and emotionally abusive Swedish physician husband for the brilliant and passionate film director Roberto Rosselini and the public shunning she suffered for making her own life decisions to be fascinating and relevant to the present.

Click here or on the title page to see a draft of the script.

This was an assignment from Turner Network Television and The Polone Company to adapt a little-known novel about about the agoraphobic wife of an abusive 1960s Drive-In Theater owner who engages in a doomed love affair with a handsome but itinerant laborer.  The lover helps her overcome her fear of leaving her tiny home, but then ultimately, and tragically, disappears.

I loved this book and the writing of the screenplay but the producer of the project was about as abusive to me as the husband in the story. I was pleased with the final result. Unfortunately, TNT didn't see fit to make the film.

Click here or on the picture to read a late draft of the screenplay.

Uncredited rewrites were very lucrative for me at the time, but also made me disappear as a writer in the industry because I was not out generating new material with my name on it. 

This kind of work, however, was excellent training for being a screenwriting professor as it developed my ability to read stories and scripts and diagnose problems and come up with their solutions. That is what I do every day in the classroom and while evaluating screenplays and outlines.

The other thing I learned is how do deal with huge and delicate egos. This has helped with collegiality as even the most difficult colleague does not even come close to what I dealt with in Hollywood.