Screenplays for the cinema
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That’ll Be The Day (1973)
This was David Puttnam’s idea and began one Saturday
afternoon in 1972 when I went to his house to borrow
a book. We had a cup of tea and got talking about films
and by the end of the day I’d been commissioned
to write my first screenplay. Basically it was a dark
story about growing up and dropping out in the Fifties,
and becoming obsessed with rock music.
David had taken his two children to see the musical
Godspell, and realised immediately that its star,
David Essex, would be perfect for our lead character.
Then Ringo Starr, whom we both knew, was so helpful
in telling us what it was like to work in a holiday
camp (Butlins) in the Fifties we asked him to play
the second lead.
As a producer David Puttnam wasn’t only brilliant with a script, and the most encouraging producer I ever met, he liked his writers to be involved throughout the entire filming process and to be involved in all major decisions
Stardust (1974)
(Writers Guild of Great Britain award for the best original screenplay,
1974)
Even before That’ll Be the Day was released David
Puttnam was urging me to write a sequel. By now David
Essex was a huge star, but, for some reason, Ringo
Starr didn’t want to play his
road manager in what was, in effect, a morality tale
of Sixties/Seventies rock
self-indulgence.
We’d expected to have Tony Curtis playing the
New York Italian American manager, but at the last
minute
Curtis dropped out, and Columbia Pictures, who had
the US distribution deal, sent us a TV star called
Larry
Hagman.
None of us knew anything about Larry, but on seeing
him we realised he wasn’t a New York Italian.
So I changed the part into a Texan, because Texas was
where Larry had grown up. Later Larry told Playboy
magazine that his performance as J.R. Ewing in Dallas
was suggested by his role in Stardust.