No, J.J., it's later than you think...

July 6, 2005 1:32 PM

The Sweet Smell of Success*. North by Northwest. The Comedian. Sabrina. The King and I. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. The Sound of Music. West Side Story. Somebody Up There Likes Me... What do they have in common? Their screenplays all passed through the typewriter of Academy Award-winning (and 6-time nominee) Ernest Lehman, who died Saturday of a heart attack. He was 89. * html screenplay [via The Screenwriting Life]
posted by dobbs (12 comments total)

Thanks, dobbs. As I posted over at MoFi, he was also a novelist and his fantastic book, The French Atlantic Affair, heavily influenced me to pursue my favorite hobby, ham radio. Ernest was K6DXK.

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posted by OneOliveShort at 2:11 PM on July 6, 2005

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posted by OmieWise at 2:24 PM on July 6, 2005

In spite of the Academy Award nominations, he was still a good writer.
posted by gramschmidt at 2:28 PM on July 6, 2005

Good stuff.


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posted by Dean Keaton at 2:33 PM on July 6, 2005

Not to start a battle, but what's that supposed to mean, OmieWise? It seems to me that the writers winning Oscars these days are generally the best working writers in the business: Alexander Payne, Charlie Kaufman, Gary Ross, Cameron Crowe...etc. Woody Allen was nominated for 14 Oscars, I think, Billy Wilder won three or four. Unlike the acting categories, where I'm sometimes dumbfounded by the winners - Gweneth Paltrow over Cate Blanchett? - it seems like the Writers' group generally gets it right.

Just my two cents.
WHL
posted by whl at 2:39 PM on July 6, 2005

Lehman said that when he started what became North by Northwest, he wanted to make "the ultimate Hitchcock picture." In my book, he succeeded.

I still haven't seen Sweet Smell of Success yet, but it's been on my list for a long time.

FYI, whenever one of Hollywood's truly notables dies, Turner Classic Movies usually schedules several of their films as a tribute ... and I'd certainly expect them to do that for Lehman within the next week or two.
posted by pmurray63 at 2:53 PM on July 6, 2005

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posted by Staggering Jack at 3:00 PM on July 6, 2005

Er, whl - the attribution comes under the posting...

Oh, and .
posted by benzo8 at 3:48 PM on July 6, 2005

Whoops, yeah. Saw that after posting. Sorry. And if my post seemed a bit confrontational, it wasn't meant to be. I just used to work at the Academy, so I'm all about the Oscars.
posted by whl at 4:10 PM on July 6, 2005

thank you, mr. Lehman
posted by matteo at 1:05 AM on July 7, 2005

(via The University of Texas' Ernest Lehman Collection)
posted by matteo at 1:07 AM on July 7, 2005

matteo: I wonder if the book Mark Evanier talks about is there?

(Ernie had a fascinating book which he allowed me to examine one day when I was visiting him and he had to leave me for about a half-hour to do a phone interview. He took all of his correspondence and paperwork relating to North by Northwest and had it bound into a book about three inches thick. As he and Hitchcock did a lot of their collaboration by mail, it was a rich and invaluable record of that movie and of Hitchcock's -- and Lehman's -- approach to filmmaking. Ernie told me he was looking into getting the whole thing published, and I don't know what happened after that. That was around ten years ago. I sure hope that book is preserved for historians.)

How I'd love to look at that...
posted by pmurray63 at 11:24 AM on July 7, 2005