Return with us again to Movieline's One-Page Screenplay project, which aims to transform Hollywood by producing scripts so brief, even a studio executive might finish them. The latest contributor to the series is the Emmy-winning Peter Lefcourt, who's currently a co-executive producer on Desperate Housewives and also has written for Cagney & Lacey, Remington Steele, Scarecrow & Mrs. King, and Showtime's Hollywood satire Beggars & Choosers, which he created.
In addition to his TV credits, Lefcourt recently wrote the William H. Macy film The Deal, and his comic novel The Dreyfus Affair (about a love affair between two Major League Baseball players) inspired one of Hollywood's most storied development histories. A revival of his play La Ronde de Lunch opens October 9 at the Skylight Theatre in Los Angeles; for now, though, we have his one-page screenplay, Sunrise/Sunset.
The Official Bio:
Peter Lefcourt was born in New York City on an undisclosed date. After several unsuccessful attempts to earn his living honestly, he took up writing. Through most of the seventies and eighties he worked as a writer/producer in film and television, succeeding beyond his mother's wildest dreams. Besides writing scripts for such chestnuts as Eight Is Enough, Remington Steele, and Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Lefcourt won an Emmy in 1984 for Cagney & Lacey.
In the 1990's he turned to writing novels, publishing the 1991 classic The Deal (now a movie starring William H. Macy and Meg Ryan), followed by The Dreyfus Affair, Di & I, Abbreviating Ernie, The Woody, Eleven Karens, and The Manhattan Beach Project.
Seeing his standard of living diminishing, he returned to television in 1999 to create and run the Showtime cult hit Beggars & Choosers, producing 44 episodes of marvelous TV that is unavailable on DVD. He is presently a Co-Executive Producer on Desperate Housewives, and knows where the bodies are buried on Wisteria Lane.
His golf handicap is well above 20, on a good day, and, unlike Tom Stoppard, he has never been knighted.
The One-Page Screenplay:
Previous One-Page Screenplays:
· Tucker Max's The SeX-Ray
· Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick's One Small Step
· Megan Holley's Squashing Ticks
· Jonathan Herman's Taxi Driver 2
· John Hlavin's Revelations
· TS Faull's THROAT BABIES
· Greg Marcks's Suicidal at McD's
· Craig Mazin's That Explains That
· Michael France's Tips on Suicide Notes
· Peter Chiarelli's The Problem with Hot Coffee
· Carl Gottlieb's Polaris Bears
· Diablo Cody's Father Approved
· Jeff Lowell's The Socialite And The Guy With The Real Job
· Michael Brandt & Derek Haas's Messy Life
· John Turman's BFF
· Rian Johnson's The Plains of Rothinian
· The Robotard 8000's Attempt #3