Articles on the film and the authorship controversy between Spielberg and Tobe Hooper include (1981): Jeff Silverman, “Well, You Don’t Expect Every Spirit to Just Sit in the Background Quietly …,” LAHE, June 2, and “Those Noisy Spirits Never Rest,” LAHE, June 5; and in 1982, Gregg Kilday, “Hooper’s Vision of the Otherworld,” LAHE, May 14; Dale Pollock, “Poltergeist: Whose Film Is It?” LAT, May 24; Aljean Harmetz, “Film Rating System Under New Fire,” NYT, June 2; Army Archerd column, DV, June 3; “DGA Looking into Poltergeist But Is Not Saying Why,” DV, June 15; Jack Searles, “Hooper Gets Some Recognition,” LAHE, June 19; and Jim Harwood, “Hooper Awarded 15G Damages for ‘Slight’; Confirm Spielberg Spat,” Variety, June 23. MGM’s advertisement featuring Spielberg over Hooper is in the pressbook for the film; the studio’s ad apologizing to Hooper about the trailer is from HR, July 9, 1982; Spielberg’s June 2, 1982, letter to Hooper was published as an ad in Variety on June 9. Information on the cost of the film and the shooting dates is from (1981): Army Archerd column, DV, May 8; “Hollywood Soundtrack,” Variety, August 12; and Roderick Mann, “A Scene Seen Leads to Poltergeist Role,” LAT, August 13; and from Pollock, “Poltergeist: Whose Film Is It?” Reviews (1982) include David Ehrenstein, “The Hollow Horror of Spielberg’s Poltergeist,” L.A. Reader, June 4; and Pauline Kael, “The Pure and the Impure,” The New Yorker, June 14.
Information on Gremlins is from the author’s interviews with Joe Dante and Michael Finnell; an interview with Dante in Maitland McDonagh, Filmmaking on the Fringe: The Good, The Bad, and the Deviant Directors, Citadel Press, 1995; David Chute, “Dante’s Inferno,” Film Comment, June 1984; and David Ansen, “Little Toyshop of Horrors,” Newsweek, June 18, 1984. Spielberg’s comment about helping younger filmmakers is from David Blum, “Steven Spielberg and the Dread Hollywood Backlash,” New York, March 24, 1986.
The author interviewed the following people who worked on Twilight Zone—The Movie: Dante, Daviau, Jon Davison, Finnell, John Landis, and Richard B. Matheson. The production, the fatal 1982 accident, the investigation, and the trial were chronicled in two 1988 books: Farber and Green, Outrageous Conduct: Art, Ego, and the “Twilight Zone” Case, and Ron LaBrecque, Special Effects: Disaster at “Twilight Zone”: The Tragedy and the Trial. Farber and Green also published three articles in the August 28, 1988, LAT: “Trapped in the Twilight Zone,” “Trials of the Prosecution,” and “The Forgotten Man.” The text of Spielberg’s December 1, 1982, letter to the National Transportation Safety Board was printed in sources including David Robb, “Spielberg Denies Presence at Fatal Twilight Crash,” DV, December 10, 1982; “Spielberg Denies He Was at Twilight Chopper Crash Scene,” Variety, December 15, 1982; and the book by Farber and Green. Harland W. Braun’s seven-page letter to Gilbert Garcetti, chief deputy district attorney of Los Angeles County, is dated November 20, 1985.
Additional information on the origin of Twilight Zone—The Movie is from Engel, Rod Serling: The Dreams and Nightmares of Life in the Twilight Zone; Sander, Serling: The Rise and Twilight of Television’s Last Angry Man; Zicree, The Twilight Zone Companion (second edition); Jim Robbins, “Spielberg Re-Enters Twilight Zone,” DV, May 25, 1982; Serling, “Notes for a Twilight Zone Movie,” The Twilight Zone Magazine, April 1983; and Robert Martin, “From Down Under to ‘20,000 Feet’” (George Miller interview), The Twilight Zone Magazine, June 1983. Robert Bloch’s novelization of the film was published in 1983 by Warner Books. Before the accident, Paul M. Sammon observed the filming of Landis’s Vic Morrow segment for his article “On the Set of Twilight Zone,” The Twilight Zone Magazine, October 1983; the same issue contains Sammon’s “TZ Interview: John Landis.” With Don Shay, Sammon wrote about the film’s special effects in “Shadow and Substance,” Cinefex, October 1983.
Articles on the filming and its aftermath also include (1982): Jerry Belcher and Charles P. Wallace, “Vic Morrow, 2 Children Die in Film Accident,” LAT, July 24; Lennie La Guire and Andy Furillo, “Death on the Twilight Zone Set,” LAHE, July 24; Army Archerd columns, DV, November 18 and December 6; Robb, “D.A. Wants Crash Re-Creation,” DV, November 23; Robb, “Spielberg Again in Zone Focus,” DV, November 30; Furillo, “Twilight Zone Story Revealed,” LAHE, December 1; Dale Pollock, “Twilight Zone Allegations Denied,” LAT, December 2; Furillo, “Spielberg Says He Wasn’t on Twilight Set,” LAHE, December 11; “Director Denies Presence at Fatal Movie Crash,” NYT, December 12;
And (1983): Furillo, “Warners: Child Twilight Victim ‘Assumed the Risk,’” LAHE, May 13; Furillo, “Are Twilight Zone Crew members on a Blacklist?” LAHE, August 7; and Robb, “Twilight Zone Witness Is Still ‘Missing,’” DV, December 16; (1984): Robb, “Welder’s Hood Impairs Sight of Zone Spec-Effects Man,” DV, January 25; and Randall Sullivan, “Death in the Twilight Zone,” Rolling Stone, June 21; (1985): Robert W. Stewart, “Attorney Pressed on Twilight Zone Allegations,” LAT, November 1; Nancy Hill-Holtzman and Furillo, “Spielberg Dragged into Twilight Zone Case,” LAHE, November 1; “Deputy DA Says Spielberg Not Tied to Twilight Zone,” LAHE, November 2; Stewart, “Movie Deaths —Spielberg ‘Not Involved,’” LAT, November 3; Robb, “Former Zone Prosecutor Denies Spielberg ‘Conspiracy’ Involvement,” DV, November 4; and Stewart, “Prosecutors Accused of Curbing Twilight Probe,” LAT, November 21;
And (1986): Paul Feldman and Bill Fair, “Witness in Film Deaths Eludes D.A.,” LAT, July 10; Furillo, “Technician Tells Role in Fatal Copter Scene,” LAHE, December 2; Furillo, “Twilight Witness Surprises Defense,” LAHE, December 3; Feldman, “Fired Mortars Without Watching Copter, Twilight Aide Says,” LAT, December 3; and “Witness Says He Approved Explosion in Film,” NYT, December 3; (1987): Feldman, “Landis Admits Hiring Children Illegally in Filming Fatal Scene,” LAT, February 19; Cynthia Gorney, “Risk and Reality: Hollywood on Trial,” Washington Post, March 18; AP, “Twilight Zone Tragedy Ups H’wood Concern for Safety,” HR, May 5; Kathleen A. Hughes, “Twilight Zone Case, Nearing a Close, Has Made Film Makers More Cautious,” Wall Street Journal, May 12; Caulfield and Michael Cieply, “Twilight Aftermath: It’s Caution on the Movie Set,” LAT, May 20; Terry Pristin, “Ethnically Diverse Twilight Jury Came Together on Very First Ballot,” LAT, May 30; Feldman, “Outraged: Landis Relieved but Calls Prosecution Dishonest,” LAT, June 2; and Gay Jervey, “Misfire in the Twilight Zone,” The American Lawyer, December;
And (1988): Robb, “Landis, Allingham, Cohn Cited for Zone Conduct,” DV, January 19; Lea Purwin D’Agostino, “Twilight Zone,” and Gary Kesselman, “Twilight Zone II” (letters to the editor), The American Lawyer, April; (1990): Sean Mitchell, “Twilight Zone: A Word from the Producer,” LAT, July 18; and (1992): Kathleen O’Steen, “Danger ‘Zone’ Still Exists, Film Pros Say” and “Zone testimony takes its toll,” DV, July 23.
Reviews of Twilight Zone—The Movie (1983) include Richard Corliss, “Bad Dreams,” Time, June 20; Vincent Canby, “Twilight Zone Is Adapted to the Big Screen,” NYT, June 24; David Ansen, “Twilight’s Last Gleaming,” Newsweek, June 27; and J. Hoberman, “Zoned Again,” The Village Voice, July 5. Spielberg reflected on the accident and on the 1983 Academy Awards in Pollock, “Spielberg Philosophical over E.T. Oscar Defeat,” LAT, April 13, 1983. The comments by Spielberg and Richard Attenborough about the DGA Awards are from Dougan, The Actors’ Director: Richard Attenborough Behind the Camera.
The author interviewed the following people involved in the filming of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (working title: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Death): Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz, Louis B. Race, and David Tomblin. The screenplay by Huyck and Katz, from a story by George Lucas, was published in 1995 by O.S.P. Publishing as part of the Premiere magazine series The Movie Script Library. An uncredited draft of the screenplay is dated March 10, 1983. In 1984, a novelization by James Kahn was published by Ballantine, and a children’s story adaptation by Les Martin was published by Random House.
Other sources on the filming include Champlin, George Lucas: The Creative Impulse; Pollock, “Spielbe
rg Gets Place to Settle Down,” LAT, May 21, 1984; Hluchy and MacKay, “Spielberg’s Magic Screen”; Elkins, “Steven Spielberg on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”; Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, “Frank Marshall Adventuring Alongside Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” Starlog, June 1984; George E. Turner, “Visual Effects for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” American Cinematographer, July 1984; and Adam Pirani, “Robert Watts: Secrets of the Temple of Doom,” Starlog, May 1985.
Sources on the controversy over the film’s violence and its PG rating (and over the PG rating for Gremlins) include the author’s interviews with Huyck, Katz, Tomblin, and Dante; Caulfield, “Spielberg Is Upset; So Is the Rating,” LAT, May 7, 1982; Pollock, “Spielberg Gets Place to Settle Down”; Chute; Harmetz, “Hollywood Plans New Rating to Protect Children Under 13,” NYT, June 20, 1984; “Revising the Rating System,” News-week, July 2, 1984; and Jacqueline R. Smetak, “Steven Spielberg: Gore, Guts, and PG-13,” Journal of Popular Film & Television, Spring 1986. Other commentary on Temple of Doom includes Ralph Novak’s review in People, June 4, and Henry Sheehan’s essay “The Panning of Steven Spielberg.” Bruno Bettelheim’s comments on fairy tales are from his book The Uses of Enchantment, Knopf, 1976.
14. “ADULT TRUTHS” (PP. 359-78)
Sources on Kate Capshaw include: Segrave, Up and Coming Actresses; Vance Muse, We Bombed in Burbank: A Joyride to Prime Time, Addison-Wesley, 1994; Roderick Mann, “Kate Capshaw Gets Plum Role in Indiana Jones,” LAT, March 29, 1983; 1984 articles by Michael J. Bandler, “Kate Capshaw,” Moviegoer, June; Nancy Griffin, “Jungle Chums: Indy and Willie in a Race with Doom,” Life, June; Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, “Meet Kate Capshaw: Companion in High Adventure,” Starlog, June; Phoebe Sherman, “Kate Who?” Marquee, June–July; Mann, “Capshaw: Her Career Is Not Constricting,” LAT, June 10; Pat H. Broeske, “Kate Capshaw: Indiana Jones Heroine Lights the Screen with Four New Films,” Drama-Logue, June 14–20; Jeff Jarvis, “Who’s That Woman in the Summer’s Smash Movie With What’s-His-Name? It’s Newcomer Kate Capshaw,” People, July 2 (which quotes Gene Siskel on her role in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom); Lois Draegin, “Beginner’s Guts,” Self, August; and Stephen Farber, “Caps Off to Capshaw,” Cosmopolitan, October; also, Donald Chase, “Kate Capshaw’s ‘Comeback,’” Movieline, February 7–13, 1986; Salamon, “The Long Voyage Home”; Schiff; Melina Gerosa, “Kate Capshaw: Loving Steven,” Ladies’ Home Journal, October 1994; Johanna Schneller, “Kate Capshaw,” US, February 1996; and Cindy Pearlman, “My Funny Valentine,” Premiere, March 1996. Leo Rosten’s The Joys of Yiddish was published in 1968 by McGraw-Hill.
Sources on Amy Irving’s reunion with Spielberg, their son Max, and their marriage include Barbara Walz and Jill Barber, Starring Mothers: 30 Portraits of Accomplished Women, Doubleday, 1987; Hirschberg; “Amy Irving and Steven Spielberg Collaborate on a Little Gremlin,” People, November 19, 1984; Black; “Filmmaker Steven Spielberg and Actress Amy Irving Exchange Vows at Private Ceremony in Santa Fe, N.M.” (press release), Warner Bros., November 1985; “Spielberg, Irving Marry,” Haddonfield (N.J.) Courier-Post, November 1985; Roger Ebert, “Director in Focus: Spielberg,” Movieline, December 27, 1985–January 2, 1986; “Amy Irving and Max,” Redbook, August 1986; Jahr; and Schiff. The birth of Max Samuel Spielberg was reported in Gregg Kilday, “It’s a Boy!” LAHE, June 14, 1985; Spielberg called him “my best production yet” in Eric Sherman, “What’s Hot: Couples,” Ladies’ Home Journal, February 1988. Their Pacific Palisades home was described by Architectural Digest in Harry Hurt III, “Architectural Digest Visits: Steven Spielberg and Amy Irving,” May 1989, and Pilar Viladas, “Steven Spielberg: The Director Expands His Horizons in Pacific Palisades,” April 1994. Information on Spielberg and Yentl is from Shaun Considine, Barbra Streisand: The Woman, the Myth, the Music, Delacorte, 1985; Randall Riese, Her Name Is Barbra, Birch Lane Press, 1993; and James Spada, Streisand: Her Life, Crown, 1995.
Information on the 1984 formation of Amblin Entertainment and on Spielberg’s complex at Universal is from Dale Pollock, “Spielberg Gets Place to Settle Down,” LAT, May 21, 1984; Jack Kroll and David T. Friendly, “The Wizard of Wonderland,” Newsweek, June 4, 1984; “Terrestrial Sphere: Steven Spielberg’s Hollywood Headquarters,” Architectural Digest, May 1985; and Nancy Griffin and Ann Bayer, “Spielberg: Husband, Father and Hitmaker,” Life, May 1986. For sources on Steve Ross, see notes for chapter 15.
The Color Purple is based on the novel by Alice Walker, Washington Square Press, 1983. Menno Meyjes’s third-draft shooting script was dated May 31, 1985, and titled Moon Song. The author interviewed Allen Daviau and Margaret Avery. Walker commented on the film in her 1996 book The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1996 (which includes her 1984 journal entry; her unused 1984 screenplay adaptation, Watch For Me in the Sunset, or The Color Purple; and her July 21, 1989, letter to Spielberg); and in her Ms. articles “Finding Celie’s Voice,” December 1985, and “In the Closet of the Soul,” November 1986. She was interviewed in 1985 by William Goldstein, “Alice Walker on the Set of The Color Purple,” Publishers Weekly, September 6; and Mona Gable, “Author Alice Walker Discusses The Color Purple,” Wall Street Journal, December 19. Walker was quoted on E.T. in Karen Jaehne, “The Final Word,” Cineaste, 15, No. 1, 1986.
Reports on the filming of The Color Purple include Susan Dworkin, “The Strange and Wonderful Story of the Making of The Color Purple,” Ms., December 1985; Elena Featherston, “The Making of The Color Purple,” San Francisco Focus, December 1985; Collins, “Spielberg Films The Color Purple”; and February 1986 American Cinematograpber articles by George Turner, “Spielberg Makes ‘All Too Human’ Story,” and Al Harrell, “The Look of The Color Purple.” Also quoted is Jean Oppenheimer’s 1991 interview with Daviau. Meyjes was interviewed by Marie Saxon Silverman, “Dutch Scripter Found Universality of People Key to Purple Project,” Variety, March 12, 1986. Additional data on the filming are from “Production Information,” Warner Bros., 1985.
Sources on Whoopi Goldberg include Philip Wuntch, “Celebrity Status Makes Whoopi a Little Uneasy,” Chicago Tribune, December 21, 1985; “Whoopi Goldberg,” People, December 23, 1985; Cathleen McGuigan, “Whoopee for Whoopi,” Newsweek, December 30, 1985; Carinthia West, “Purple Reign,” US, January 13, 1986; Steve Erickson, “Whoopi Goldberg,” Rolling Stone, May 8, 1986, and David Rensin, “Playboy Interview: Whoopi Goldberg,” June 1987. Sources on Oprah Winfrey include her syndicated TV show Oprah, May 22, 1996, on which Spielberg appeared and she read from her 1985 journal; Robert Waldron, Oprah!, St. Martin’s Press, 1987; “Yes, Sir, Steven …” Chicago Tribune, September 5, 1985; Jane Galbraith, “Winfrey Tickled Pink by Purple Role,” DV, January 31, 1986; Bruce Cook, “Oprah Winfrey Enjoying Sweet Success,” LADN, March 17, 1986; and Gary Ballard, “Oprah Winfrey,” Drama-Logue, March 20–26, 1986. See also (1986): Jack Mathews, “3 Color Purple Actresses Talk About Its Impact,” LAT, January 31, and Nan Robertson, “Actresses’ Varied Roads to The Color Purple,” NYT, February 13.
Articles on the controversy over the film include (1985): Jeffrey Ressner, “Media Monitoring Group to Protest Color Purple Pic,” HR, November 1; Emily Gibson, “Black Like She,” L.A. Weekly, November 1; “Black Marchers Protest Film,” LAHE, November 10; Mathews, “Some Blacks Critical of Spielberg’s Purple,” LAT, December 20; and Charles Champlin, “Spielberg’s Primary ‘Colors,’” LAT, December 28; and in 1986: “Does Purple Hate Men?” Chicago Tribune, January 5; E. R. Shipp, “Blacks in Heated Debate over The Color Purple,” NYT, January 27; Lynn Norment, “The Color Purple,” Ebony, February; Jacqueline Trescott, “The Passions over Purple,” Washington Post, February 5; Legrand H. Clegg II, “Bad Black Roles in Purple,” letter to LAT, February 16; and John Stark, “Seeing Red Over Purple,” People, March 10.
Reviews (1985) include Peter Rainer, “One Wonders Why Spielberg Wanted to Do Color Purple,” LAHE, December 18; John Powers, “Sister, Where Art Thou?” L.A. Weekly, December 20; Rit
a Kempley, “Purple: Making Whoopi a Star,” Washington Post, December 20; Siskel, “Color Purple—Powerful, Daring, Sweetly Uplifting,” Chicago Tribune, December 20; Richard Corliss, “The Three Faces of Steve,” Time, December 23; J. Hoberman, “Color Me Purple,” The Village Voice, December 24; David Ansen, “We Shall Overcome,” Newsweek, December 30; and Pauline Kael, “Sacred Monsters,” The New Yorker, December 30. The description of the film as “Close Encounters with the Third World” is from “The Color Spielberg,” LAHE, December 12, 1985. Armond White’s comments are from his essay “Toward a Theory of Spielberg History,” Film Comment, March–April 1994. The critical reception of The Color Purple was analyzed in 1985 articles by Pat H. Broeske and John M. Wilson, “Seeing Red Over Purple,” LAT, December 22; Martin Grove, “Hollywood Report,” HR, December 26; and Broeske, “Color Purple Different Shades,” LAT, December 29; information on top-ten lists is from Pat McGilligan and Mark Rowland, “Critics Went Gunning for Stallone in ’85,” LAT, January 19, 1986.
Articles on Spielberg’s omission from the 1986 Academy Award directing nominations, and his subsequent Directors Guild of America award, include Army Archerd column, DV, February 6; Mathews, “Spielberg Upstages Oscar Race,” LAT, February 7; Kroll, “The Snubbing of Spielberg,” Newsweek, February 17; letters to the editor, DV, by Andre de Toth, February 18, and Sy Gomberg, February 19; “Seeing Red Over Purple”; David T. Friendly, “Spielberg’s Revenge—Hollywood Style,” LAT, March 10; Desmond Ryan, “Why Does Oscar Keep Slighting Spielberg?” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 26; “Spielberg Speaks Out on Acad’s Color Snub,” DV, April 1; and Perry. Spielberg also commented in 1996 on Oprah. Additional articles on the film’s treatment by the Academy include (March 26, 1986): Bruce Cook, “Oscar Snub of Purple Called Bias,” LADN; “Academy Denies NAACP Charges Re Color Purple,” DV; and “NAACP Files Protest re Purple Shutout,” HR; and March 27: Friendly, “Academy Hits Racism Accusation,” LAT; David Colker, “Black Coalition Says It’s Glad Color Purple Didn’t Win Oscar,” LAHE; and Yardena Arar, “NAACP Defends Purple Position,” LADN.
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