Hollywood director and screenwriter who won an Oscar for Dog Day Afternoon
In Sunset Boulevard, William Holden's character remarks: "Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture. They think the actors make it up as they go along." Given the difficulties in quantifying their contributions, screenwriters seldom get the recognition they deserve. Frank Pierson, who has died aged 87, wrote the screenplays for 10 films but his reputation rests on Cat Ballou (1965), Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975), all of which gained him Academy Award nominations, with the last of them winning the Oscar for best original screenplay.
Yet most of the plaudits for Dog Day Afternoon went to Sidney Lumet, the director, and Al Pacino, the star. Pierson, whose work had as much to do with structure and character as dialogue, shaped the script from a Life magazine article about a bungled bank robbery that took place...
In Sunset Boulevard, William Holden's character remarks: "Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture. They think the actors make it up as they go along." Given the difficulties in quantifying their contributions, screenwriters seldom get the recognition they deserve. Frank Pierson, who has died aged 87, wrote the screenplays for 10 films but his reputation rests on Cat Ballou (1965), Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975), all of which gained him Academy Award nominations, with the last of them winning the Oscar for best original screenplay.
Yet most of the plaudits for Dog Day Afternoon went to Sidney Lumet, the director, and Al Pacino, the star. Pierson, whose work had as much to do with structure and character as dialogue, shaped the script from a Life magazine article about a bungled bank robbery that took place...
- 7/26/2012
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Frank Pierson, an Academy Award-winning screenwriter who worked in TV and movies for more than 50 years, has died at the age of 87. Pierson was the son of Louise Randall Pierson, whose memoir, Roughly Speaking, about her experience holding the family together was made into a 1945 movie starring Rosalind Russell. After attending Harvard, Frank got his start in advertising before breaking into TV as script editor on the hit Western Have Gun, Will Travel. He got his first big-screen credits on two movies directed by Elliot Silverstein: the comedic Western Cat Ballou (1965) and The Happening (1967). And ...
- 7/23/2012
- avclub.com
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