screenwriter

16Apr

By Web TeamNo Comments

Noteworthy, Profiles, United States

Milena Jelinek, screenwriter

Milena Jelinek ‑ a Czech American screenwriter, playwright and teacher ‑ died in New York on 15 April 2020 of complications from COVID-19, aged 84. Jelinek wrote the screenplay for the film Forgotten Light, which was awarded three Czech Lions in 1997. Her name is associated with the golden generation of Czech filmmakers, known as Czech New Wave. She was married to the late researcher Frederick Jelinek. Jelinek was born on 19 August 1935 in Prestice, near Pilsen. From 1955, she studied at the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. The film director Ivan Passer was one of her classmates, and the writer Milan Kundera was her literature teacher. One of her early screenplays, written under her maiden name and titled Snadný život (An Easy Lif...

Joel M. Reed, film director, producer and screenwriter

Joel M. Reed ‑ an American film director, producer and screenwriter ‑ died on April 12, 2020, aged 86, in a care facility in New York City after contracting COVID-19. Reed is best known for directing the controversial Blood Sucking Freaks (1976), a notorious horror comedy that was the subject of protests upon its initial release and has since achieved cult status. Reed also directed the films Career Bed (1968), Sex by Advertisement (1969), The G.I. Executioner (Wit's End / Dragon Lady / Wild Dragon Lady; 1971), Blood Bath (Terror / Night and the City; 1976) and Night of the Zombies (Gamma 693 / Sister of Death / Battalion of the Living Dead; 1981). Reed wrote and directed Blood Bath, which was produced by the Trans-Orient Entertainment...

Terrence McNally, playwright, librettist & screenwriter

Terrence McNally –an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter – passed away on March 24, 2020 after suffering from coronavirus. Described as "the bard of American theater" and "one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced," McNally was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1996. He received the 2019 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, and the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2018, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the highest recognition of artistic merit in the United States. He received the Tony Award for Best Play for Love! Valour! Compassion! and Master Class, as well as the Tony Award for Best Book of a Mus...