Dennis Murphy (August 27, 1932 – October 6, 2005) was a screenwriter and author, known for his 1958 best selling book The Sergeant, for which he wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film of the same name. [1]
Murphy was born and raised in Salinas, California. At age 25, his novel The Sergeant was published, and became an international best seller. Family friend John Steinbeck (Murphy's grandfather delivered Steinbeck), who wrote several letters to Murphy, was also highly complimentary of it. [1] [2] In 1959, he was looked up by an itinerant Hunter S. Thompson, who appreciated his work. They became friends, and Thompson lived on the Murphy estate for a time. [3] Murphy wrote the screenplay for the movie version of the novel, and he worked in Southern California as a screenwriter for over 30 years. He moved to San Francisco in 1994, where he died at his home from cancer in October 2005.
His older brother, Michael Murphy, is co-founder of the Esalen Institute.
James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist who scripted many award-winning films including Roman Holiday, Exodus, Spartacus, and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. One of the Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry. He, along with the other members of the Hollywood Ten, and hundreds of other industry professionals were subsequently blacklisted by that industry.
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was an American author. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception." He has been called "a giant of American letters," and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature.
William Saroyan was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film adaptation of his novel The Human Comedy.
William Goldman was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist before turning to screenwriting. He won Academy Awards for his screenplays Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and All the President's Men (1976). His other works include his thriller novel Marathon Man and comedy/fantasy novel The Princess Bride, both of which he adapted for the film versions.
Crossfire is a 1947 film noir drama film which deals with the theme of anti-Semitism, as did that year's Academy Award for Best Picture winner, Gentleman's Agreement. The film was directed by Edward Dmytryk and the screenplay was written by John Paxton, based on the 1945 novel The Brick Foxhole by screenwriter and director Richard Brooks. The film stars Robert Mitchum, Robert Young, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame and Sam Levene. It received five Oscar nominations, including Ryan for Best Supporting Actor and Gloria Grahame for Best Supporting Actress. It was the first B movie to receive a best picture nomination.
The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.
Mario Gianluigi Puzo was an American author, screenwriter and journalist. He is known for his crime novels about the Italian-American mafia, most notably The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a three-part film saga directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the first film in 1972 and Part II in 1974. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for the 1978 Superman film. His final novel, The Family, was released posthumously in 2001.
Larry Jeff McMurtry is an American novelist, essayist, bookseller, and screenwriter whose work is predominantly set in either the Old West or in contemporary Texas. His novels include Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films earning 26 Oscar nominations. His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations, with the other three novels in his Lonesome Dove series adapted into three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and cowriter Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Stephen Chbosky is an American novelist, screenwriter, and film director best-known for writing The New York Times bestselling coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999), as well as for writing and directing the film version of the same book, starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and Ezra Miller. He also wrote the screenplay for the 2005 film Rent and Disney's 2017 live action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, alongside Evan Spiliotopoulos, and was co-creator, executive producer, and writer of the CBS television series Jericho, which aired from 2006 to 2008. Most recently, he directed the 2017 drama Wonder, starring Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson, and Jacob Tremblay. His next novel, Imaginary Friend, was published in October 2019.
Guillermo Arriaga Jordán is a Mexican author, screenwriter, director and producer. Self-defined as "a hunter who works as a writer," he is best known for his Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay nominations for Babel and his screenplay for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which received the 2005 Cannes Best Screenplay Award.
Ernest Kellogg Gann was an American aviator, author, sailor, and conservationist. He is known for his novels Island in the Sky and The High and the Mighty and his classic memoir of early commercial aviation Fate Is the Hunter, all of which were made into major motion pictures.
Gavin Lambert was a British-born screenwriter, novelist and biographer who lived for part of his life in Hollywood. His writing was mainly fiction and nonfiction about the film industry.
Peter Viertel was an author and screenwriter.
Thomas Myles Steinbeck was a screenwriter, photographer, and journalist. He published numerous works of fiction, including short stories and novels. He was the elder son of American novelist John Steinbeck.
Michael Lennox Blake was an American author, best known for the film adaptation of his novel Dances with Wolves, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Ted Berkman was an American author, screenwriter and journalist best known for writing the screenplay for Bedtime for Bonzo.
Robin Stender Swicord is an American screenwriter and film director. She is best known for literary adaptations. In 2009 the screenplay for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, credited to Swicord (story) and Eric Roth and based on the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay. Swicord also wrote the screenplay for the film Memoirs of a Geisha, based on the novel of the same name by Arthur Golden, for which she won a 2005 Satellite Award. Her other screenplay credits include Little Women, Practical Magic, Matilda, The Perez Family, and Shag.
Scott Eric Neustadter is an American screenwriter and producer. He often works with his writing partner, Michael H. Weber. The two writers wrote the original screenplays for (500) Days of Summer and The Pink Panther 2. (500) Days of Summer is based on two real relationships Neustadter had. They also wrote the screenplays for The Spectacular Now, based on the novel by Tim Tharp, The Fault in Our Stars, based on the best-selling novel by John Green, and Paper Towns, based on another novel by Green.
Clancy Carlile was an American novelist and screenwriter of Cherokee descent. He is perhaps best known for his 1980 novel Honkytonk Man, made into a film by Clint Eastwood.
Dennis Jeffrey Feldman is a North American screenwriter, photographer, film producer and director.