To celebrate Alison Macor's lively biography of the screenwriter Warren Skaaren, we're highlighting the surprising impact and short life of one of Hollywood’s highest-paid writers. Although he rarely left Austin where he lived and worked, Skaaren wrote 1980s hit movies like Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, Beetlejuice, and Batman. Rewrite Man: The Life and Career of Screenwriter Warren Skaaren addresses issues of film authorship that have become even more contested in the era of blockbuster filmmaking, especially with ongoing negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and a possible strike by the Writer's Guild of America.
Twelve Things You Didn’t Know About Screenwriter Warren Skaaren
By Alison Macor
Warren Skaaren was a bit like the fictional Zelig in Woody Allen’s movie of the same name. If something big—even historic—was happening, Skaaren probably was there, just behind the scenes. From his storied tenure as student body president at Rice University during the tumultuous 1960s to his seemingly “overnight” success as one of Hollywood’s go-to script doctors, Skaaren made the most of his short but memorable life. As fellow screenwriter Bill Broyles (Cast Away, Apollo 13) once said, “Warren was like a Wizard of Oz character able to do these magical things like suddenly showing up at the airport with Steve McQueen. He was moving in a world that none of us could even imagine. He just made things happen.”
He sold Hollywood on Texas. Twenty-five-year-old Skaaren, working in the Governor of Texas’s office, drafted a proposal for the state’s film commission. Governor Preston Smith appointed him as the first executive director of the Texas Film Commission in May 1971. Under Skaaren’s four-year tenure, he brought Hollywood films like The Getaway, The Sugarland Express, and Lovin’ Molly to shoot in Texas.
He masterminded the Coat and Tie Rebellion at Rice University. As student body president at Rice, Skaaren kept a campus-wide protest from turning ugly when he led students and faculty in a peaceful protest against the hiring of a controversial new university president. Nicknamed the Coat and Tie Rebellion because of its formally attired participants, this protest—and Skaaren’s efforts—resulted in the resignation of William Masterson just three days after he was hired to lead the university.
He introduced Leatherface to the Mob. While still head of the Texas Film Commission, Skaaren worked behind the scenes to land a distributor for an independent horror movie called The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. All of the major film companies passed, but a fledgling distributor named Bryanston Pictures showed interest. Run by Louis “Butchie” Peraino and his uncle Joseph, a “made” man in the Colombo crime family, Bryanston made the Texans an offer, and well, they couldn’t refuse.
He saved Top Gun. A young Tom Cruise, hot off the success of Risky Business, was ready to bail on a film about hotshot fighter pilots at an elite training academy. Producing partners Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson hired Skaaren over the phone after he wowed them with his treatment, which humanized Cruise’s character, Maverick, and ditched Maverick’s bimbo gymnast girlfriend in favor of a sexy rocket scientist. It was also Skaaren’s idea for Maverick to woo love interest Charlie (Kelly McGillis) by singing a duet of the Righteous Brothers’ classic “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” with Maverick’s best friend Goose, played by Anthony Edwards. Cruise stayed on the picture, and its success would propel the actor into superstardom and cement his friendship with Skaaren.
Some may assume that top actresses like Reese Witherspoon and Angelina Jolie who also produce and direct have attained a level of control only possible in the modern era. Film scholar Emily Carman reminds us of the early Hollywood actresses whose sharp business acumen and near total ownership of their creative output laid the groundwork for female agency in Hollywood today. Carman's new book Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System is out now.
Hollywood's Forgotten Legacy of Female Agency
By Emily Carman
With the Golden Globes this weekend, it is officially awards season in Hollywood. While it is true that 2015 was a banner year for female performances in film, this string of impressive films headlined by female stars harkens back to the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s—a forgotten age of the American film industry when strong women were the norm for Hollywood cinema. Female stars, in a range of genres (ranging from the woman’s film, musicals, and romantic comedies), dominated the American box office largely because studio executives and movie producers presumed that in order for their films to profitable, they had to appeal to women audiences. Thus, contra today, Hollywood films were designed, produced, and marketed with women in mind.
In my new book Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System I argue that this presumed audience demographic created a demand for female talent that in turn enabled some business savvy actresses to bargain for lucrative contracts with the studios and to freelance and work independently in Hollywood, foreshadowing the current system for movie talent. I have complied a list of the top ten most innovative moments for female agency in Hollywood – what I call independent stardom – that resonate with contemporary industry practices and with women in Hollywood today. The actresses listed below are not in any particular order as all of the contributions are equally important, but I will start with the woman who graces the cover of my book, Carole Lombard, because, in my opinion, she was the vanguard of female independent stardom in Hollywood.
1
Carole Lombard
You might remember her as Clark Gable’s famous wife, or for her screwball comedies of the 1930s (in fact, the term "Screwball" comedy was coined for her after her Oscar-nominated performance in My Man Godfrey in 1936). But by 1937, Lombard was Hollywood’s most visible freelancer and Hollywood's highest paid actor, working concurrently at Paramount, Warner Bros. and for producer David O. Selznick. She chose her own roles, co-stars, directors, and even her own cinematographer to make her films. Moreover, she was a savvy businesswoman who negotiated for a cut of her films’ box office gross to supplement her salary and for the right to approve and create her publicity campaigns (which she often used to showcase her independent career). She also had plans to form an independent production company with her ex-husband and fellow actor William Powell, her agent Myron Selznick, and auteur director Ernst Lubitsch, prefiguring the now ubiquitous trend of movie stars who have their own companies to produce films. Her trendsetting career was cut short in 1942 after her death in a plane crash returning to California from a WWII bond tour.
2
Mary Pickford
Any discussion about women in Hollywood forging independent careers merits a mentioning of Pickford, a film pioneer in a myriad of ways. By 1916, she had the right to choose her own projects, the talent she worked with, and was the first film star to found her own production company. In 1919 she went further, co-founding the studio United Artists with fellow actors Douglas Fairbanks and Charles Chaplin and director D.W. Griffith in order to have total creative and financial control over the production and distribution of their films. In fact, Chaplin asserted that it was Pickford’s business acumen that kept the fledging company afloat in the 1920s.
3
Constance Bennett
Daughter of stage actor Richard Bennett and sister of actress Joan Bennett, Constance Bennett was one of Hollywood's hardest bargainers. So much so that in 1931 Warner Bros. paid her $30,000 a week on her vacation time away from RKO to make a film for them. She also had her own corporation established in 1934 to earn a cut of her films' box office profits. And in the 1940s, when leading roles dwindled from the studios, she formed her own Constance Bennett Pictures and produced two films, Paris Underground (1945) and Smart Woman (1948). Her entrepreneurship expanded beyond Hollywood as well; the actress created her own make-up and clothing lines. Her cutthroat contract negotiations earned her the sole female spot among Hollywood’s poker-playing elite comprised of top movie moguls Jack Warner, Darryl Zanuck, Samuel Goldwyn, and more.
