David Morrell
David Morrell is the award-winning author of ‘First Blood’, the 1972 novel in which Rambo first appeared. A former professor of American literature, he has written numerous best-selling thrillers including ‘The Brotherhood of the Rose’ (the basis for a highly rated NBC miniseries), ‘The Fifth Profession,’ ‘Desperate Measures’, and ‘Extreme Denial’. His books have been translated into twenty-two languages.
The story that follows is based on a real-life situation. Morrell’s inspiration to become a writer was Stirling Silliphant, whose work for ‘Route 66’ and ‘Naked City’ made him one of the most acclaimed television writers of all time. Over the years, Morrell and Silliphant became friends, and one evening Silliphant confided that the TV networks were less interested in his work now that he was in his late sixties. His abilities hadn’t diminished and his work ethic remained in place, but the young executives who run the television industry decided that he couldn’t speak to the demographically desirable younger audience. Fed up with Hollywood, Silliphant had a Beverly Hills garage sale and moved to Bangkok, where he wrote what he wanted to and died of prostate cancer at the age of seventy-eight. Morrell dedicated this story to him.
Front Main
“Tell me that again,” I said. “He must have been joking.”
“Mort, you know what it’s like at the networks these days.” My agent sighed. “Cost cutting. Layoffs. Executives so young they think ‘L.A. Law’ is nostalgia. He wasn’t joking. He’s willing to take a meeting with you, but he’s barely seen your work, and he wants a list of your credits.”
“All two hundred and ninety of them? Steve, I like to think I’m not vain, but how can this guy be in charge of series development and not know what I’ve written?”
This conversation was on the phone. Midweek, mid-afternoon. I’d been revising computer printouts of what I’d written in the morning, but frustration at what Steve had told me made me press my pencil down so hard I broke its tip. Standing from my desk, I clutched the phone tighter.
Steve hesitated before he replied. “No argument. You and I know how much you contributed to television. You and Rod Serling and Paddy Chayefsky practically invented TV drama. But that was then. This executive just started his job three months ago. He’s only twenty-eight, for Christ’s sake. He’s been clawing his way to network power since he graduated from business school. He doesn’t actually watch television. He’s too damned busy to watch it, except for current in-house projects. What he does is program, check the ratings, and read the trades. If you’d won your Emmys for something this season, he might be impressed. But ‘The Sidewalks of New York!’
I stared out my study window. From my home on top of the Hollywood Hills, I had a view of rushing traffic on smoggy Sunset Boulevard, of Spago, Tower Records, and Chateau Marmont. But at the moment, I saw none of them, indignation blinding me.
“Steve, am I nuts, or are the scripts I sent you good?”
“Don’t put yourself down. They’re better than good. They don’t only grab me. They’re fucking smart. I believe them, and I can’t say that for…” He named a current hit series about a female detective that made him a fortune in commissions but was two-thirds tits and ass and one-third car chases.
“So what’s the real problem?” I asked, unable to suppress the stridency in my voice. “Why can’t I get any work?”
“The truth?”
“Since when did I tolerate lies?”
“You won’t get pissed off?”
“I will get pissed off if-“
“All right already. The truth is, it doesn’t matter how well you write. The fact is, you’re too old. The networks think you’re out of touch with their demographics.”
“Out of-“
“You promised you wouldn’t get pissed off.”
“But after I shifted from television, I won an Oscar for ‘The Dead of Noon.’”
“Twenty years ago. To the networks, that’s like the Dark Ages. You know the axiom-‘What have you done for us lately?’ The fact is, Mort, for the past two years, you’ve been out of town, out of the country, out of the goddamn industry.”
My tear ducts ached. My hurried breathing made me dizzy. “I had a good reason. The most important reason.”
“Absolutely,” Steve said. “In your place, I’d have done the same. And your friends respect that reason. But the movers and shakers, the new regime that doesn’t give a shit about tradition, they think you died or retired, if they give you a moment’s thought at all. Then isn’t now. To them, last week’s ratings are ancient history. What’s next? they want to know. What’s new? they keep asking. What they really mean is, What’s young!”
“That sucks.”
“Of course. But young viewers are loose with their dough, my friend, and advertisers pay the bills. So the bottom line is, the networks feel unless you’re under thirty-five or, better yet, under thirty, you can’t communicate with their target audience. It’s an uphill grind for writers like you, of a certain age, no matter your talent.”
“Swell.” My knuckles ached as I squeezed the phone. “So what do I do? Throw my word processor out the window, and collect on my Writers Guild pension?”
“It’s not as bad as that. But bear in mind, your pension is the highest any Guild member ever accumulated.”
“But if I retire, I’ll die like-“
“No, what I’m saying is be patient with this network kid. He needs a little educating. Politely, you understand. Just pitch your idea, look confident and dependable, show him your credits. He’ll come around. It’s not as if you haven’t been down this path before.”
“When I was in my twenties.”
“There you go. You identify with this kid already. You’re in his mind.”
My voice dropped. “When’s the meeting?”
“Friday. His office. I pulled in some favours to get you in so soon. Four P.M. I’ll be at my house in Malibu. Call me when you’re through.”
“Steve…”
“Yeah, Mort?”
“Thanks for sticking with me.”
“Hey, it’s an honour. To me, you’re a legend.”
“What I need to be is a working legend.”
“I’ve done what I can. Now it’s up to you.”
“Sure.” I set down the phone, discovered I still had my broken pencil in one hand, dropped it, and massaged the aching knuckles of my other hand.
The reason I’d left L.A. two years ago, at the age of sixty-eight, was that my dear wife-
– Doris-
– my best friend-
– my cleverest editor-
– my exclusive lover-
– had been diagnosed as having a rare form of leukaemia.
As her strength had waned, as her body had gradually failed to obey her splendid mind, I’d disrupted my workaholic’s habit of writing every day and acted as her constant attendant. We’d travelled to every major cancer research centre in the United States. We’d gone to specialists in Europe. We’d stayed in Europe because their hospice system is humane about pain-relieving drugs. We’d gotten as far as Sweden.
Where Doris had died.
And now, struggling with grief, I’d returned to my career. What other meaning did I have? It was either kill myself or write. So I wrote. And wrote. Even faster than in my prime, when I’d contributed every episode in the four-year run of ‘The Sidewalks of New York.’