CAROLE WESTERN AND MONTGOMERY-WEST—2nd excerpt from Ch. 40 of LITTLE IDIOT: Tuesday January 30, 1990: talked to Dewey Graham. He had not read Roman Sunrise over the weekend. Said he would try to get to it by Friday. Received two notes from Dan Adams. The first note said that Disney had rejected Roman Sunrise because there were logic flaws in the story and the script didn’t live up to the promise of the story’s premise. I doubted that anyone at Disney had actually read the screenplay. Why did I doubt? Because the script had been at the studio for no more than a week and the only film professional who was going to go through one of my screenplays that fast was Janet Healy. Dan’s other note reported that Mary Holdridge at Pacific Western liked España! but Gale Anne Hurd didn’t want to do a historical piece. (That sounded like a repeat of Dave Madden, didn’t it?) February 1st: borrowed another $500 so we could make our house payment, etc. Friday February 2nd: called Kathy Tomlinson at Silver Pictures. When I had talked to her last week I thought she had read Raven, but today she told me her assistant had read it and now it was her turn. Last week she had been very positive about the script; today she wasn’t sure Raven was right for the company. Next I called Sandollar and was told by John Shestack’s assistant that The Pumpkin Shell was being returned but they would like to see the synopses of my other screenplays. February 6th: learned that Roman Sunrise was being returned by the Zanuck Company. Friday February 16th: called Silver Pictures; Kathy Tomlinson had not read all of Raven. (Had she read any of it?) . Called Alive Films and talked to Lionel Wigram. He also had not read Raven. In the evening took a call from Mark Whipple, who said he had just talked to Carole Western, one of the agents with Montgomery-West, a new literary agency in Salt Lake City. He had told Carole about me and she said she would be glad to read one of my screenplays, so I called her at her home and talked to her for about half an hour. Carole seemed very pleasant and I learned that she was a writer too. She told me that among other things Montgomery-West was negotiating with Robert Redford to sell him the film rights to a novel that had been published six weeks ago. With this information I decided to send Carole a copy of The Prophet along with Coolidge. February 17th: after mailing the two screenplays to Montgomery-West I had a job interview with Fritz Gamble, the national sales manager for Centec Orthopedics. Afterwards I thought I would be offered the job. If so I would take it even though the starting salary was only $25,000. After all, that was $25,000 more than what I was currently making. February 22nd: the Centec job went to someone else. February 28th: a contract arrived from Carole Western. I signed it and returned it the next day along with two more copies of The Prophet and Coolidge, which Carole had requested after having read both. Later I called Dewey Graham at Act III. He had read Roman Sunrise, liked the story very much he said, but then added that Act III was already doing two films on time travel, so another rejection. March 1st: talked to Kathy Tomlinson at Silver Pictures. She was going to pass on Raven. March 2nd: received a letter from Mary Holdridge at Pacific Western. She wrote: I have looked over your list of screenplays and, while they all sound interesting, The Prophet seems to be the most appropriate for Pacific Western’s current interests. I look forward to receiving a copy for review. Thanks for all of your interest in our company. I immediately called Carole Western and she said she would send The Prophet to Mary’s attention right away. She also said she and the other agent at Montgomery-West were planning on meeting with Robert Redford next weekend and they were going to give him a copy of the script. Monday March 4th: Annette Van Wagoner, the other agent with Montgomery-West, called to tell me how impressed she was with Coolidge and The Prophet. She did, however, suggest that I write a new beginning for The Prophet, one that would create more of a hook for an audience by having more action. While I agreed to do so I wondered why the current beginning, which involved the destruction of a printing press, wouldn’t grab an audience. March 7th: began writing the new beginning for The Prophet, in which the brothers Joseph and Hyrum Smith would escape from their enemies in Missouri in 1839. Arriving in Illinois, the Prophet would then heal many of the sick members of the church. Annette Van Wagoner had suggested beginning with Joseph’s death but I did not want to do that, believing there would then be no real impact in the latter part of the story. Also on this date I mailed out letters to some of the writers I had worked with while associated with Dan Adams. I recommended that they get in contact with Montgomery-West. March 10th: Katherine Willingham-St. Germaine called to thank me for the letter I had sent her. She had not had an agent since Dan Adams had written her off. His letter to her had been so harsh that she had given up.
Posted on: Sat, 24 May 2014 16:46:23 +0000
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