Monster
Subtitle: Living Off the Big Screen
Edition: 1st edition
Publisher: Random House
Published: February 11, 1997
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 203
ISBN-13: 9780679455790
Subjects: Production and direction; Dunne, John Gregory - Prose & Criticism; Motion Picture Industry; Performing Arts/Dance; Up close and personal (Motion; Biography & Autobiography / General; Motion picture authorship; Motion picture plays; Motion pictures
First sentence: "In the spring of 1988, my wife, Joan Didion, and I were approached about writing a screenplay based on a book by Alanna Nash called Golden Girl, a biography of the late network correspondent and anchorwoman Jessica Savitch."
Description: Monster is John Gregory Dunne's mordantly funny account of life on the Hollywood food chain. Dunne and his wife, Joan Didion, have been working in the movies for over twenty-five years, and have written, rewritten, brainstormed, and developed two dozen scripts, seven of which have been produced. Monster is the candid chronicle of how one of those scripts finally got made into Up Close & Personal, starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer.

The Up Close screenplay started out as the story of Jessica Savitch, the television news anchorwoman whose history included drugs, opportunistic sex, and an early, violent death. Over the years it was refined into a story that would "make the audience walk out feeling uplifted, good about something, and good about themselves," as one executive put it in an early script meeting.

The tale of how this happened is a hilarious saga that Dunne relates with a wicked eye and perfect pitch for the absurdities and savage infighting of the film industry.