We went back to Calley and told him our decision. As far as Sam O’Steen … it’s very painful for me, but in order to get the movie made, I’ll step aside.” Joel said to me: “I will cut the movie down to 110 pages. Joel and I, in the heat of the noonday sun, walked the entire perimeter of the lot. Mayfield had written the phenomenally successful soundtracks for Super Fly and Claudine. O’Steen had just directed a musical for CBS called Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, which was a great success. O’Steen was the legendary editor of Carnal Knowledge, Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, and Catch-22, which Calley had produced. Why don’t you two take a walk around the studio? Come back and tell me your decision.” I’ll make the movie under the following four conditions: 1. But Calley said: “I read Joel’s screenplay. Joel had his heart set on directing the movie, and I had mine set on Ashford and Simpson writing the music. I called up John Calley, who was running Warner Bros., and told him about the project, and Joel and I went to meet with him. It was an epic and sweeping story of a black family. Unless you write the screenplay on spec, the project will die.” Joel had never written a full-length screenplay before, but went ahead and wrote a 200-page version that became the basis for Sparkle. ![]() I said to Joel: “The Lonnie Elder screenplay doesn’t work. By then I was out in California making movies for Barry Diller and Michael Eisner at their Movie of the Week factory at ABC. ![]() And I wrote a treatment about the formation of a girl group in 1968 with a very entrepreneurial mogul Svengali-ing one of three sisters and turning her into a supernova.Įlder’s draft came in, and it wasn’t any good. I picked up the sequin and said: “We’re going to call our movie Sparkle.” I went home and did some research on Gordy, Motown, Diana Ross, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. ![]() One dress was covered in sequins and paillettes, and a paillette fell on the floor. One Monday night he dressed three mannequins in red dresses. Joel was doing the display windows at Henri Bendel at the time. I said to Joel: “We have to go out to Hollywood and make a movie about these girls who are singing in the background.” We immediately hit it off because we both were in love with R & B, soul, and the movies. It turned out Joel and I both wanted to go to Hollywood to make movies. The soundtrack in the background was ’70s Supremes-“Up the Ladder to the Roof,” “Stoned Love,” and “Nathan Jones” playing over and over all afternoon. One hot July morning in 1971, at Fire Island Pines, N.Y., I was introduced to Joel Schumacher.
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