Screenwriting

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. FULL COVERAGE: Chasing the dream A year ago, an 11-minute version of "The Pact" played at Sundance.

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...

Jimmy Castor Wrote hit song 'Troglodyte (Cave Man)' Jimmy Castor, a funk and soul saxophonist, singer and songwriter best known for "Troglodyte (Cave Man)" and "It's Just Begun," died Monday of apparent heart failure at a Las Vegas hospital. He was 71, according to his family. A resident of Henderson, Nev., Castor was hospitalized in November after a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery. Castor was born and raised in New York City.

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.

One of the last links to the silent film era, Frederica Sagor Maas wrote the script for 1925's "The Plastic Age," which launched actress Clara Bow. But she watched in horror as her serious treatment on women and work was turned into a frivolous 1947 musical, "The Shocking Miss Pilgrim," starring Betty Grable. It was Maas' final Hollywood credit. Disgusted by the "shallow" industry, she and her screenwriter husband contemplated suicide before leaving the movie business altogether, she later wrote.

"A Dangerous Method," the intellectually stimulating look at the formative days of psychoanalysis, presents Viggo Mortensen in a transformative performance as Sigmund Freud, Michael Fassbender as his restrained protégé and rival, Carl Jung, and a bold Keira Knightley as the patient-turned-practitioner who came between them. But it was almost a Julia Roberts movie. "I first heard of and was intrigued by the story of Sabina Spielrein in a book by Aldo Carotenuto, 'A Secret Symmetry,'" says screenwriter Christopher Hampton of the character played by Knightley.

Will Reiser on his creative process, his work space and how difficult it can be to fictionalize a true account. Where he writes: Anywhere, but his favorite place is his first-floor home office in Echo Park, which has a giant desk and a lot of Post-It notes full of advice. One note reads: "SPECIFICITY," while another says, "Go deeper, more emotional turns. " Instrument of success: Apple PowerBook, but he also sends notes on his BlackBerry and via email. "I used to hand write, but I've stopped — I'd find I'd lose things when I would hand write.