Title: The Untold Story Behind the Executioner's Song: A Conversation with Lawrence Schiller
Abstract: This probing interview focuses on Schiller's involvement with Mailer on The Executioner's Song. ********** LARRY SCHILLER IS JUST BACK from China. meet him at his Los Angeles home on January 14, 2007, one day after his return from interviewing 17 contemporary Chinese artists and their families. Schiller's goal is to build from their stories an intimate history of China from the end of World War II to 2001. When completed, the book will join long list of media projects he has created, usually in intense collaborations with co-authors and screenwriters, and often with controversy as his backdrop. After making name for himself as photojournalist while still teenager in the 1950s, got Jack Ruby's deathbed interview, made headlines with his coverage of the Manson Family murders, and spent time with Timothy Leary. For his buying of exclusive rights to true-crime stories, he came to be regarded by many as a world-historical ambulance chaser, in Time magazine's words. In forty years of journalism Schiller's collaborations have included biography of Lenny Bruce (with Albert Goldman); W Eugene Smith's photo essay on pollution in Japan, Minamata; and books on master spy Robert Hanssen and the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder. He has also produced or directed more than fifteen television films, winners of five Emmys. But will likely be best remembered for his work with Norman Mailer. conceived of Marilyn in 1973 and The Faith of Graffiti in 1974, bringing together photographs and Mailer's text for each. More recently he did interviews in Belarus with Mailer for Oswald's Tale, and Mailer wrote the screenplay for American Tragedy, from Schiller's best-selling book (with James Willwerth) on the inner workings of the O.J. Simpson trial. In between came Schiller's and Mailer's greatest achievement: The Executioner's Song. Over two nights in July 1976, three months after his release from prison, longtime convict Gary Gilmore murdered gas station attendant Max Jensen and hotel manager Ben Bushnell near Salt Lake City, making away with meager amounts of cash. When Gilmore, convicted, refused appeals and demanded to be executed, he attracted worldwide attention. Shot by firing squad on January 17,1977, he became the first inmate put to death in the U.S. in ten years and the first since the lifting of four-year national moratorium on the death penalty. As readers of Mailer's Pulitzer Prize-winning true life novel know, sensed great story in Utah shortly after learning of Gilmore's suicide pact with teenage mother Nicole Baker Barrett, his lover in the weeks prior to the killings. Schiller's quest, to buy the movie and book rights to Gilmore's story and interview him on death row, had its critics. In 1977 profile, Esquire dubbed Agent of Death for his tactics. But in consummate twist of Mailer's self-consciousness about media, Schiller's own deals would become the central conflict of the second half of Executioner's Song, itself product of those deals. later directed television miniseries from Mailer's screenplay, which was nominated for an Emmy. Tommy Lee Jones won the Best Actor Emmy for his portrayal of Gilmore. In his afterword to the book, Mailer called Schiller's contributions invaluable: Schiller stood for his portrait, and drew maps to his faults. He ... not only delivered the stuff of his visions but the logic of his base schemes. Schiller's plan always involves incredibly thorough interviewing over weeks and months. He sometimes pays lawyers' fees if they must be present. I tell people when set up interviews that not coming for hit-and-run, he said. I'm preserving history. You're an important part of my project, and going to need lot of your time. He spends multiple sessions building what he calls dictionary of person's life. A typical first question would be, what is your earliest memory of your grandfather? …
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-09-22
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot