Gary Goldstein, Author, Producer, Writer: He had written seven scripts that were
sitting in a stack in the corner of his studio apartment that not a single human had read.
Film Courage: J.F. Lawton had been writing screenplays and trying to
break into Hollywood for years, do you think that would have happened if he hadn't met you?
Gary: My belief is that J.F. Lawton was so profoundly talented I see this in a number
of people in front of and behind the camera that eventually I have to I hope and believe
that he would have made it but one of the things I would say is at the time I was more manager than
producer when I met him lit manager and you're right he had he was living in a one-room studio
apartment in the rampart district of Hollywood back then a very let's just say colorful if
not dangerous experienced on a day-to-day basis and he had dropped out of film school
and I'm not sure if I've shared this before but he the way we met was I had bought one of
the early macintosh computers and a screenwriter friend of mine was working on one but you couldn't
just plug them in and work on them someone had to program them and I said how did you make it
work and they said hire Jonathan so I did three weeks in my office full time around the clock
asking me every question about learning everything that I did and me suggesting these are the kinds
of programs that I would need and he was really brilliant and really lovely but he was quiet
but I became fond of him over the three weeks and in some conversation toward the
end I started asking more questions and I learned that he was earning his livelihood
in two ways one he was beta testing software and writing up articles in these computer magazines
he was installing computer systems for film a lot of entertainment companies
on the one hand and on the other hand he was late at night editing
trailers for the b movies that came out of canon pictures back in the day
well when I learned that I thought so clearly you have an interest in the entertainment space
and then I found he had gone to film school he let let me know he had written seven scripts
that were sitting in a stack in the corner of his studio apartment that not a single human had read
his father was a an author an academician a real a man of letters so Jonathan came by it naturally
so to answer your question when we met I read about several of his scripts
and I said you're really you're you're talented rather than refer you to an agent I want to work
with you but these scripts are as good as they are and as much as they evidence your talent
they're a little bit quirky and what I would like to have as a means of introducing you in
a meaningful way to the community because we all live in a steady diet of hope and expectation that
we're going to discover the next great voice the next great project the next great artist
that's a critical energy and so I wanted to be able to frame him in a certain way and have a
certain quality of screenplay and so I asked him I said I want to work with you but it's
not a condition but I would really like it if you would create on spec a new screenplay
and I would like that screenplay optimally to be a romance I don't care if it's a comedy or
drama and the reason I chose that is because when you learn about someone's personal story
you can zero in on things and in his instance he was 23 at the time quite young
and he had been in a relationship he met a young lady when he was 18 and they'd been in a five-year
relationship and he was still madly in love with her as she had just left the relationship
to say that he was sad would be an understatement
and not to be masochistic but honestly I thought who would write a better romance
at this particular moment than this young man so I asked him to give me a romance and
I said just a classic two-hander good male good female rule no exploding bridges nothing
expensive like if I needed to make this very inexpensively independently we could do that
and that's so he went away and he came back and it wasn't long I don't remember I would say
two and a half months with the first draft of what was then called 3000
the script that eventually got transformed into pretty woman from drama to comedy and without
question it was the single most refined first draft I think I've ever had held in my hand
it was really compelling and I knew as soon as and I decided it was so good I wasn't there I
gave no notes and I started to introduce it very selectively and the feedback was so consistently
to say enthusiastic would be in there people were wowed so I knew we had the calling card we had the
welcome mat to introduce him to the to the larger community
so I think given given his talent he would have gotten there I think I gave it a nudge
and and that was my sort of specialty was knowing how to present and introduce someone new to the
business so together I think we we accelerated the process what a wonderful story what year was this
I'm going to say it was right around 1984. oh wow okay I believe
interesting wow so you saw in him this sort of reserved maybe genius but just needed some nudging
and you wanted to see several scripts of his correct before you actually made a commitment
he reminds me that what I actually said to him was let me read one of your scripts and
if I like it i'll help you find an agent which was a very genuine comment on my part I would
would have been happy to do so well as it turns out I read one and then I said this is really
interesting do you have another and he gave me another I ended up reading three
unbeknownst to me he was being very I would say intentional because he was giving me
these scripts in the order in which he'd written them so they kept getting better and by the third
I said jonathan let's you and I collaborate i'd like to represent you i'd like to work with you
and he was delighted and that was the end of the conversation other than what next so yeah we
we we had an extraordinary rapport and I would say that he people bandy about the word genius quite
casually I would say he was he was quite he he was what would be my definition of a creative genius
and then and then of course the next project that he wrote on spec was a result of a lunch that we
had together and the more I dug into finding out who he was and what his life experience
was his family life and all of that I learned that he had been he had done he'd been in the
military I've never been in the military so to me that's a very alluring world it's sort of a
fascinating world to me and jonathan had served in the coast guard reserve and he did that
he was in active service at the time that the olympics were about to come to los angeles which
was many many years ago I have no idea what year that was probably the very early 80s I would think
and I started to ask him about what was that tell me what what did you do what where did you serve
were you on a I called it a boat it was a ship right
and he he just sort of regaled me with these stories of what it was and they had received
counter-terrorist training because of the olympics so they had a very intensive program
the more he talked the more I leaned in I was absolutely riveted by it at which point at the
end of the lunch I said Jonathan I need you I need you would you be willing to write a story
set in that world and that was the story that was the foundation for under siege
and that's where he learned his IT skills was was in the coast guard did they did they pardon me I
don't I don't know if that's a true statement I really don't okay yeah fascinating and did you see
where he would write his scripts in this little apartment off Rampart [in Los Angeles] I saw his
apartment and he was on the ground floor the front corner of the building with windows facing on the
alley he was right on in on the alleyway oh wow and the visual tapestry on a day-to-day basis was
I don't want to characterize I don't want to judge it but it was a constant parade
of police and working girls and drug dealers and pimps and homeless, etc and it was because
of the part of town he was in that was it that was just the way it was on a persistent basis
so as a backdrop to the original script that was 3000 it was like almost like the perfect
input right it was because the original was
everyone say oh it was very dark well it was it it was darker and it was edgy but it's not like
people died and it was I believe it did reflect the world he was actually living in at the time
fascinating very fascinating thinking back without J.F. Lawton how would you attribute your success
had you not met him had it not been the right time how do you see your career being different
well I'm eternally grateful for having met him and we did accomplish a great deal and and not
everything that we did of course got produced as is the case for everybody but I was really
fortunate I came without filters I came from San Francisco from being a criminal defense lawyer
I had a burning desire to be in the film and storytelling business the visual storytelling
business but I didn't have the knowledge to back it up I didn't have mentors I didn't know
anyone in la when I moved here so I was sort of like this blank slate just a big white canvas
and so my my mission was to befriend and just chat up anybody and everybody and make
as far as I'm concerned the world I wanted everyone in the world to be my five minute mentor
and then I started I made the decision to open a literary shang hang a shingle as a literary
manager and rented the offices got the furniture and got the assistant got all the the attributes
of it and I remember sitting one day looking at the phone on my desk with my feet up on the desk
staring at the phone for hours and it never once rang and I thought oh I've forgotten something
I don't have a plan I don't have a network and I got busy and one of the things that
was at the top of the totem as a priority was I need I need to find great people as clients
that said I was so new that I wasn't sure I would recognize what other than we're all great judges
as humans of a good story but in terms of the structure and how it's crafted and all of that
I was still learning but I thought okay I'm gonna I'm gonna use the my best sense to figure it out
but at the same time it's really important to me that I find people that I find very attractive as
souls as as artists as like there's a there's something really wonderfully unique about them
and I was fortunate to sign his clients I didn't actually sign in fairness that's not
true I never had agreements my my philosophy was very simple I had to earn my keep every day
I would work hard every day representing someone in in an effort to launch make their dream a
reality and on their side of the bargain they had to work with every bit as hard not just writing
but making themselves known as best they could creating their own relationships
right on a parallel track and I did sign I did I keep saying sign but I didn't
so it was a handshake anytime they were dissatisfied they were
welcome to leave but I had a lot of very long many year enduring relationships and it turns out that
several of them Jonathan was not the only great success story there were quite a few
Alice in brunettes done he's written been produced 15 times he's produced
a few of those he's directed several of those Matt Reeves
and his then writing partner gosh they had minimal resume they had some but Matt's gone on to direct
and produce and write were for the planet of the apes he did the one before that I forget the name
of that franchise or that episode he's doing the next the batman that's coming out next year
so there's a number of these people that started out with me
that were really quite they were wonderful people and they were truly gifted not all of
them but quite a number of them went on to have what I would call meaningful enduring careers.