John Byrum | |
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Occupation(s) | Director, screenwriter |
Spouses |
John Byrum is an American film director and writer known for The Razor's Edge , Heart Beat , Duets and Inserts . [2]
Raised in Winnetka, Illinois, on the North Shore of Chicago, Byrum attended New Trier High School, and later studied at New York University in the late 1960s. His instructors included Haig P. Manoogian and graduate student Martin Scorsese, and classmates Oliver Stone and Eric Jenkins. At NYU, he co-wrote Item 72-D, The Adventures of Spa and Fon with director Edward Summer.
As a student, Byrum interned with Jim Henson on early appearances of The Muppets and was later hired by Henson as one of the original writers of Sesame Street . Henson took a special interest in Byrum's talent, and hired him to write freelance projects. Byrum left New York for Hollywood after Byrum's original script Inserts received positive reaction, and he was tapped to write the script Harry and Walter Go to New York by producers and mentors Don Devlin, Tony Bill, and Harry Gittes.
After that script was sold for a then-record-breaking amount, Byrum was hired to write the Diana Ross vehicle Mahogany . He passed on the chance to write the script for Jaws to work on Mahogany with one of his idols, director Tony Richardson, only to have Richardson leave the film midproduction after clashing with producer Berry Gordy of Motown fame. Berry took over directing chores, and the true drama of Mahogany was said to be the behind-the-camera relationship between Gordy and Ross. [3]
Byrum directed his first feature film Inserts with stars Richard Dreyfuss, Jessica Harper, Veronica Cartwright, Stephen Davies, and Bob Hoskins.
Byrum did uncredited work on the script for Valentino because Ken Russell wanted an American co-writer. [4]
Byrum followed soon after as writer/director of Heart Beat, starring Nick Nolte, John Heard, and Sissy Spacek, as Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, and Carolyn Cassady, respectively. On this film, Byrum started his long collaborative relationship and friendship with composer Jack Nitzsche. [5]
Byrum teamed with Mahogany producer Rob Cohen, which resulted Scandalous and The Razor's Edge, the 1984 film directed by Byrum based on the W. Somerset Maugham novel starring Bill Murray in his first dramatic role as Larry Darrell, and co-starring Catherine Hicks, Theresa Russell, Denholm Elliott, and James Keach. Byrum and Murray co-wrote the screenplay. The film faltered with critics and audiences, as most were not ready to accept Murray in a noncomedic role. In later years, the film achieved cult status and many fans have traveled to its international locations, to replicate Larry's spiritual journey.
Following the box-office failure of The Razor's Edge, financially strapped Byrum directed the goofy comedy The Whoopee Boys starring Michael O'Keefe and Paul Rodriguez.
He was the original director of the TV movie Desperado (1987), but left the project during filming. [6]
Byrum created, wrote, and produced several television series, including Middle Ages starring Peter Riegert, Michael O'Keefe, Amy Brenneman, and William Russ, about a group of friends attempting to deal with the onset of their 40s on the North Shore of Chicago; [7] South of Sunset starring Glenn Frey of The Eagles fame, as an unconventional Los Angeles detective; and Winnetka Road starring Josh Brolin, Meg Tilly, Paige Turco, and Ed Begley, Jr., again, dealing with life on Chicago's North Shore. Byrum's television movie Murder in High Places starred Ted Levine as a Hunter Thompson-like character who is elected mayor of a Colorado ski resort, which showcased a young Lisa Kudrow in one of her first acting roles.
Byrum was scheduled to direct his original script of karaoke road-trip dramedy Duets when he was felled by a serious case of Lyme disease that had gone long undiagnosed. Byrum's friend Bruce Paltrow wanted to direct Duets with his daughter Gwyneth Paltrow as one of the six ensemble characters. Brad Pitt was attached to co-star with Paltrow, his fiancée at the time, but when their engagement ended, the film's financing faltered once again. Duets was filmed several years later with Scott Speedman in the role originally chosen by Pitt, along with Paul Giamatti, Maria Bello, Andre Braugher, and Huey Lewis.
John Byrum married actress Linda Fiorentino on June 23, 1992. Byrum and Fiorentino worked together on the movie The War at Home, [8] which began filming April 15, 1988; the two were in a relationship at that point. Byrum wrote the script, which was loosely based on the life of model and actress Edie Sedgwick; however, the film was never completed. The couple divorced in 1993, after a year of marriage, for reasons not known. In 1997, Byrum married his current wife, American screenwriter Karin Reznack.
Film
Year | Title | Director | Writer |
---|---|---|---|
1975 | Inserts | Yes | Yes |
Mahogany | No | Yes | |
Have a Nice Weekend | No | Yes | |
1976 | Harry and Walter Go to New York | No | Yes |
1977 | Valentino | No | Uncredited |
1980 | Heart Beat | Yes | Yes |
1981 | Sphinx | No | Yes |
1984 | Scandalous | No | Yes |
The Razor's Edge | Yes | Yes | |
1986 | The Whoopee Boys | Yes | No |
2000 | Duets | No | Yes |
TV series
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Executive Producer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1985 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Yes | Yes | No | Directed episode "Night Caller" |
1990 | Shannon's Deal | Yes | Yes | No | Episode "Sanctuary" |
1992 | Middle Ages | No | Yes | Yes | |
1993 | South of Sunset | No | Yes | Yes | Episodes "Satyricon" and "Custody" |
1994 | Winnetka Road | No | Yes | Yes | 3 episodes; Also creator |
TV movies
Year | Title | Director | Writer | Executive Producer | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1987 | Desperado | Uncredited | No | No | Replaced by Virgil W. Vogel |
1991 | Murder in High Places | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
1995 | To the Beat of the Drum | No | No | Yes | |
1996 | Desert Breeze | No | Yes | Yes |
In film, an insert is a shot of part of a scene as filmed from a different angle and/or focal length from the master shot. Inserts cover action already covered in the master shot, but emphasize a different aspect of that action due to the different framing. An insert differs from a cutaway as cutaways cover action not covered in the master shot.
Cecil Antonio Richardson was an English theatre and film director, producer and screenwriter, whose career spanned five decades. He was identified with the "angry young men" group of British directors and playwrights during the 1950s, and was later a key figure in the British New Wave filmmaking movement.
Bruce Weigert Paltrow was an American television and film director and producer. He was the husband of actress Blythe Danner, and the father of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and screenwriter/director Jake Paltrow.
Berry Gordy III known professionally as Berry Gordy Jr., is an American retired record executive, record producer, songwriter, film producer and television producer. He is best known as the founder of the Motown record label and its subsidiaries, which was the highest-earning African-American business for decades.
David Koepp is an American screenwriter and director. He is the ninth most successful screenwriter of all time in terms of U.S. box office receipts with a total gross of over $2.3 billion. Koepp has achieved both critical and commercial success in a wide variety of genres: thriller, science fiction, comedy, action, drama, crime, superhero, horror, adventure, and fantasy.
Clorinda "Linda" Fiorentino is an American former actress. Fiorentino made her screen debut with a leading role in the 1985 coming-of-age drama film Vision Quest, followed that same year with a lead role in the action film Gotcha! and an appearance in the film After Hours.
The Muppet Movie is a 1979 musical road comedy film directed by James Frawley, produced by Jim Henson, and the first theatrical film to feature the Muppets. A co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States, the film was written by The Muppet Show writers Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns. Produced between the first and second half of The Muppet Show's third season, the film tells the origin story of the Muppets, as Kermit the Frog embarks on a cross-country trip to Los Angeles, encountering several of the Muppets—who all share the same ambition of finding success in professional show business—along the way while being pursued by Doc Hopper, a greedy restaurateur with intentions of employing Kermit as a spokesperson for his frog legs business.
His Majesty O'Keefe is a 1954 American adventure film directed by Byron Haskin and starring Burt Lancaster. The cast also included Joan Rice, André Morell, Abraham Sofaer, Archie Savage, and Benson Fong. The screenplay by Borden Chase and James Hill was based on the novel of the same name by Laurence Klingman and Gerald Green (1952).
The Last Dragon is a 1985 American martial arts comedy film written by Louis Venosta, produced by Rupert Hitzig for Berry Gordy and directed by Michael Schultz. The film stars Taimak, Vanity, Julius Carry, Christopher Murney, Keshia Knight Pulliam, and Faith Prince. Choreography was created by Lester Wilson and Lawrence Leritz.
Mahogany is a 1975 American romantic drama film directed by Berry Gordy and produced by Motown Productions. The Motown founder Gordy took over the film direction after British filmmaker Tony Richardson was dismissed from the film. Mahogany stars Diana Ross as Tracy Chambers, a struggling fashion design student who rises to become a popular fashion designer in Rome. It was released on October 8, 1975. The soundtrack included the single "Theme from Mahogany", which peaked at number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in January 1976.
Robert Alan Cohen is an American director and producer of film and television. Beginning his career as an executive producer at 20th Century Fox, Cohen produced and developed numerous high-profile film and television programs, including The Wiz, The Witches of Eastwick, and Light of Day until he began focusing on full-time directing in the 1990s. He directed the action films The Fast and the Furious, and XXX.
Love Liza is a 2002 American tragicomedic drama film directed by Todd Louiso and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Jack Kehler, Wayne Duvall, Sarah Koskoff and Stephen Tobolowsky. The film is written by Gordy Hoffman, a playwright and the elder brother of Philip. Love Liza debuted at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.
Duets is a 2000 American road trip film co-produced and directed by Bruce Paltrow and written by John Byrum. The motion picture features an ensemble cast with Gwyneth Paltrow, Huey Lewis, Paul Giamatti, Maria Bello, Angie Dickinson, Scott Speedman, and Andre Braugher among others. The movie "revolves around the little known world of karaoke competitions and the wayward characters who inhabit it."
Edmund Goulding was a British screenwriter and film director. As an actor early in his career he was one of the 'Ghosts' in the 1922 silent film Three Live Ghosts alongside Norman Kerry and Cyril Chadwick. Also in the early 1920s he wrote several screenplays for star Mae Murray for films directed by her then husband Robert Z. Leonard. Goulding is best remembered for directing cultured dramas such as Love (1927), Grand Hotel (1932) with Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford, Dark Victory (1939) with Bette Davis, The Constant Nymph (1943) with Joan Fontaine, and The Razor's Edge (1946) with Gene Tierney and Tyrone Power. He also directed the classic film noir Nightmare Alley (1947) with Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell, and the action drama The Dawn Patrol. He was also a successful songwriter, composer, and producer.
Carolyn Elizabeth Robinson Cassady was an American writer and associated with the Beat Generation through her marriage to Neal Cassady and her friendships with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and other prominent Beat figures. She became a frequent character in the works of Jack Kerouac.
Inserts is a 1975 British comedy-drama film written and directed by John Byrum in his directorial debut, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Jessica Harper, Bob Hoskins and Veronica Cartwright.
The Razor's Edge is a 1984 American drama film directed and co-written by John Byrum starring Bill Murray, Theresa Russell, Catherine Hicks, Denholm Elliott, Brian Doyle-Murray, and James Keach. The film is an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel The Razor's Edge.
Mr. Patman is a 1980 Canadian film directed by John Guillermin and starring James Coburn.
Heart Beat is a 1980 American romantic drama film written and directed by John Byrum, based on the autobiography by Carolyn Cassady. The film is about seminal figures in the Beat Generation. The character of Ira, played by Ray Sharkey, is based on Allen Ginsberg. The film stars Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, and John Heard.
On The Road is a 2012 adventure drama film directed by Walter Salles. It is an adaptation of Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel On the Road and stars an ensemble cast featuring Garrett Hedlund, Sam Riley, Kristen Stewart, Alice Braga, Amy Adams, Tom Sturridge, Danny Morgan, Elisabeth Moss, Kirsten Dunst, and Viggo Mortensen. The executive producers were Francis Ford Coppola, Patrick Batteux, Jerry Leider, and Tessa Ross. Filming began on August 4, 2010, in Montreal, Quebec, with a $25 million budget. The story is based on the years Kerouac spent travelling the United States in the late 1940s with his friend Neal Cassady and several other Beat Generation figures who would go on to fame in their own right, including William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. On May 23, 2012, the film premiered in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. The film received mixed early reviews after it premiered at the film festival. The film also premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival in September.