Screenwriters

A puzzle that has haunted Hollywood for more than a year, the disappearance of screenwriter Gary Devore, was apparently solved Wednesday when an armchair detective, saying he was guided only by a newspaper account of the mystery, led investigators to Devore's vehicle submerged in an aqueduct near Palmdale, with a body still at the wheel. Divers found a partially decomposed body dressed in blue jeans, a Western-style shirt and cowboy boots.

WASHINGTON - In the months after the U.S. militarymission that killed Osama bin Laden, Pentagon officials met with Hollywood filmmakers and gave them special access in an effort to influence the creation of a film about the operation, newly released documents show. Emails and meeting transcripts obtained from the Pentagon and CIA through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch suggest that officials went out of their way to assist the filmmakers, while trying to keep their cooperation from becoming public.

He co-wrote the script for "Big Momma's House," the new Martin Lawrence comedy that is making fistfuls of cash for 20th Century Fox, and he's got projects in the works with Ice Cube and Chris Tucker. But when he called out of the blue last week, Darryl Quarles sounded peeved.

Singer and actress Julie Andrews has listed the Brentwood house she owned with her late husband, director and screenwriter Blake Edwards , for $2.649 million. Less than a month after coming on the market, the tidy white home with gray shutters is already in escrow. The traditional-style house features a family room and living room with French doors opening to a fanciful garden that appears to be "practically perfect in every way" to borrow a phrase from "Mary Poppins. " The formal dining room has a cathedral ceiling and glass walls.

Screenwriter David Steinberg was invited last fall by a producer to pitch his idea for a rewrite of a "high-concept comedy" about an adult slacker for a major studio. Steinberg figured he had a good shot at the assignment with credits like "American Pie 2" under his belt, even though he heard there were many other writers competing for the opening. After an initial meeting, the producer asked him to prepare a more detailed proposal, known as a "beat sheet," outlining each scene and character.

To pen a living as a Hollywood screenwriter has always required fortitude and patience. Given the ratio between number of writers and available work, the odds of success are long. Now it looks like the odds have become a whole lot longer. Thanks to a recession-driven downturn forcing studios to make fewer movies and TV shows, coupled with a screenwriters strike last year that ground production to a halt, the wordsmiths of Hollywood have seen jobs and income evaporate. That's the bleak take-away from the annual financial report of the Writers Guild of America, West, the union that represents about 8,000 movie and TV screenwriters.

I was delighted to read that the "Overlooked and Underrated" film festival at the Egyptian Theatre included "The Friends of Eddie Coyle." ["Unappreciated, Ignored and Slighted No More," Dec. 31] As Chris D., the festival programmer, said, "There is a lot of great dialogue in the movie." Too bad Susan King (yet another L.A. Times staffer who seems to act as an unpaid press agent for the Directors Guild of America) saw fit to mention only the movie's director, Peter Yates, who, of course, had nothing to do with the dialogue.

Whether they were poets, playwrights, journalists, songwriters or press agents, the generation of writers who streamed to Hollywood in the early sound era had to cope with the exigencies of "talkies" while creating the basic storytelling rules that screenwriters still abide by today. For a new book, "Backstory: Interviews With Screenwriters of Hollywood's Golden Age" (University of California Press), Pat McGilligan has interviewed 15 of the best screenwriters on the Golden Age of Hollywood .

Screenwriter Robin Swicord sought to transform herself into an "everyman" when she set out to adapt "Memoirs of a Geisha" for the big screen. She simply had to trust her instincts as she sought to draw out the essence of the bestselling novel by Arthur Golden upon which the movie is based. "I had to go on the simple thought of, 'What I loved [from the book] is what other people loved.' In a way, it is kind of an act of faith," she recounts.

On any afternoon at the Insomnia Cafe on Beverly Drive, half the patrons are staring intently at laptop computers while sipping their lattes. They look as if they're working on screenplays. "Everybody in here is," admits Johnny Cho, 27, with a laugh. Hollywood lore had it that everyone in Los Angeles was an actor, that waiters slipped their head shots in with the check and car salesmen tried out monologues on prospective customers.

Action film screenwriter Skip Woods has put himself where the action is in L.A. — the bustling Hollywood Hills West area — with the purchase of a hillside house for $2.004 million. The sleek contemporary, built in 1951 and extensively updated, features a dramatic two-story entry with a skylight and chandelier, high ceilings, walls of glass, a bar, a fireplace, four bedrooms and three bathrooms. A deck off the master suite has city views. A glass-walled deck over the driveway creates a carport.

I've always been auditory, and I'm here to tell you that the online dating site - the 21 s t century's "cute meet" - only goes so far. You have to call them first. (And, before that, they have to give you their number.) Nothing's easy. One woman ruled out speaking on the phone until we met in person. Our preliminary relationship was based on seemingly endless back-and-forth email snippets, each of which featured her tiny dating profile photo. I found her smile and how she always signed off with the retro "Peace" endearing.

The Santa Monica home of screenwriter Alvin Sargent and his late wife, film producer Laura Ziskin , has come on the market at $11.85 million. Ziskin worked with designer Jane Hallworth in creating the detailed interiors. A back-lit honeycomb onyx fireplace is a focal point of the living room. In the powder room, a smoky beveled mirror provides a backdrop for a sink made out of a single piece of wood. A hammered brass tub from India looks like an art object in the master bathroom.

Tonino Guerra, an internationally renowned Italian screenwriter who collaborated with Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and other greats of Italian and world cinema on films such as Fellini's "Amarcord" and Antonioni's "L'Avventura" and "Blow-Up," has died. He was 92. Guerra died Wednesday at his home in Santarcangelo di Romagna, in northern Italy, according to an announcement on the Tonino Guerra Cultural Assn. website. A poet, novelist and former schoolteacher, Guerra began his screenwriting career in Rome in the mid-1950s.

Screenwriter and director Stephen Sommers and his wife, Jana, have listed their estate in Malibu for sale at $13.5 million. Set in the gated community of Serra Retreat at the end of a cul-de-sac, the rebuilt and remodeled main house and detached guesthouse sit on 1.5 acres with a sports court, outdoor fireplace, a barbecue center and expansive lawns. The free-form swimming pool features waterfalls and a slide. Interior amenities include a home theater, double-island kitchen, two family rooms, six bedrooms and nine bathrooms in 9,130 square feet of living space.

"Is this really happening?" Nicholas McCarthy asked as he stepped carefully along an icy sidewalk toward the theater. An evening full of red carpets and party people was fading. It was almost midnight on the first Friday at the Sundance Film Festival. His moment had come at last. After more than a decade of pursuing his Hollywood dream, McCarthy, 41, was on his way to the premiere of his first feature film, "The Pact. " His wife, Alexandra, walked beside him. He held her hand.

As the screenwriter of "The Fisher King" and adaptations of "The Horse Whisperer" and "Beloved," Richard LaGravenese has given great material to such directing talents as Terry Gilliam, Robert Redford and Jonathan Demme. But with "Living Out Loud," starring Holly Hunter and Danny DeVito, New York-based LaGravenese, 39, saved the script for his own directorial debut. TO THINE OWN SELF: "I'm not really aware of what the marketplace is looking for because I don't live in L.A.

Tony Bennett pours forth from the speakers, but that's about the only concession this ski-resort-town Italian restaurant makes to ethnicity; its menu includes French dip sandwiches and burgers.

John Logan's road to becoming one of the most versatile and in-demand screenwriters began when he was a youngster. He suffered from severe asthma that prevented him from playing outside, so he found solace watching old movies on the family's small black-and-white TV set. "I fell in love with Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone and Hitchcock and Orson Welles and John Huston," said Logan, 50, who still talks with child-like enthusiasm about...

Frank Perry's "Last Summer" was one of a handful of high-profile X-rated movies that were released in 1969 along with the Oscar-winning best picture "Midnight Cowboy" and Haskell Wexler's docudrama, "Medium Cool. " Unlike "Cowboy" and "Cool," though, "Last Summer" has fallen off the radar. It was briefly released on VHS in the early days of home video but has had no DVD release. There haven't been any recent screenings because there were no available prints in the U.S. But Thursday evening, the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre is showing a 16-millimeter print that was found in Australia.