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Luck Trumps Talent Every Time |
The
Warren Adler E-Sheet 46
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The Strange Saga of The War of the Roses
 A
couple of us scribblers were jawing it over
lunch one day last Spring and the question was
raised by
Tom Fleming, an enormously talented
and successful prize-winning author, as to
whether it was luck that trumped talent or
vice versa. Another writer friend, Charlie
Flood whose brilliant book
Grant and Sherman was just being
published, was party to our conversation as
well.
In a show of unanimity without a moment's
hesitation the three of us agreed. Yes indeed,
luck trumps talent, always and forever.
Imagine, between us we had published maybe
sixty or more books, secure in the total
confidence in our own talents and we had all
voted for lady luck over the mysterious gift
of talent as the driving force of what the
world might define as successful writing
careers.
At that point Tom pulled out what he called
his lucky charm, a device his Dad once used as
a baseball umpire to keep track of balls and
strikes. Superstition had never been my strong
point, but in keeping with the direction of
our conversation, I asked and was given
permission to rub it, which I did, eagerly and
optimistically.
I mention this incident because it recalled
for me the strange and mostly luck drenched
saga of one of my twenty-eight published
novels
The War of the Roses. The book was
written more than twenty-five years ago in my
windowless basement writing room in Chevy
Chase, Maryland. Wearing my usual writing
attire, pajamas and bathrobe, the seat of
which was worn out with use, I wrote the book
on my electric typewriter in six months and
sent it off to my agent.
The idea had popped into my head when one of
the attendees at a Christmas dinner party
announced that he had to get home before
midnight. If not, his then wife, from whom he
was getting a divorce, would lock him out of
the house. He said they were living together
in hate, while in the process of getting the
divorce, sharing the facilities on a scheduled
allocated basis. He had his half of the
fridge, separate bedrooms, time schedules on
the washer and dryer and what might be called
"separate but equal" privileges in other
areas.
Having never been divorced or experienced any
in my family, I did a modicum of research on
the procedure but it hardly took up much of my
time. As the politicos might say: it's the
imagination dummy. My friend Sidney
Offit often cites this personal fact in
his creative writing courses to illustrate the
primary tool of the fiction writer.
Within a couple of months, I had a publishing
deal and a movie option deal with Richard
Zanuck and David Brown, both fine
men who had experienced the subject matter of
the book and related to its content, as they
say, big time.
I wrote the script, which they loved, but for
reasons connected to the mysteries of the
movie business, they had a falling out with
the studio, Twentieth Century Fox. After two
years the option lapsed and the material went
into limbo.
A couple of years went by and my then agent
had a casual conversation with a lawyer who
mentioned that one of his clients,
Arnon Milchan, was looking for material. In
Hollywood, they tell you they're always
"looking for material", which means looking
for an idea that attracts bankable people,
such as a director and stars, the key elements
in getting a movie made. My agent suggested
The War of the Roses, which had
acquired an important pedigree having already
attracted one of the great producing teams in
the business. He sent Milchan the script.
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The movie was released in 1989, eleven
years after it was written. By then the
book had been translated into more than 25
languages. |
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Milchan, who apparently had gone through a
messy divorce, attracted allies such as
James L. Brooks and an associate Polly
Platt, both of whom had gone through
contentious divorces. Without going into the
tangled web of Hollywood studio politics, the
movie was released in 1989, eleven years after
it was written. By then the book had been
translated into more than 25 languages.
The movie with Michael Douglas,
Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito
who directed it, did just about okay. It had
its worldwide run, its television release and,
except for occasional repeats on TV, I thought
that would be the end of it.
Was I wrong? The first hint I had that this
was something of a phenomenon came when I was
buying a tie in Harrods in London. The curious
clerk wanted to know what I did for a living
and my wife, still my one and only, casually
mentioned that I had written the book
The War of the Roses. His response was
"woof woof" - Kathleen Turner's salty answer
to the question why her pate was so tasty.
The second hint came when I was doing a
reading on a cold wintry evening in Jackson
Hole. Two people showed up merely to shake my
hand. They were both professors of psychiatry
at Yale and told me that they used my book in
their courses. Other psychiatrists have since
acknowledged the use of my book. More and more
The War of the Roses showed up in the
media. Headlines blared that Donald and
Ivana Trump were getting a "War of the
Roses" divorce. It is now part of the legal
nomenclature to describe a nasty contentious
no holds mean-minded divorce.
Recently, too, a new magazine featuring
content dealing with divorce was launched in
Germany called
RosenKrieg, translated from German as "the
War of the Roses." The announcement appeared
in The New York Times and on the front page of
the Los Angeles Times.
The snowball effect slowly became an
avalanche. It often baffles me. Perhaps its
endurance is directly proportional to the
worldwide accelerating epidemic of divorce.
Whatever the reason, it has indeed rung
somewhat of a universal gong.
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Not a week passes without someone,
somewhere in the media jungle, mentioning
the title. |
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People tell me the movie plays somewhere in
the world every few days. I read somewhere
that Michael's wife Katherine Zeta-Jones
would love to do a remake. Not a week passes
without someone, somewhere in the media
jungle, mentioning the title. People introduce
me as the author of
The War of the Roses. I hate it
considering that I have 28 other books
published and other movie and TV credits.
People began asking me what happened to the
children of the Roses, as if they were real
people. I began to think about that and wrote
a sequel called
The Children of the Roses. In another
strange twist of fate, the sequel is currently
in negotiation for a television series in the
mode of
Desperate Housewives. As they say in the
Big Apple: Go figure.
Okay, I could say luck was involved in this
saga. If I hadn't gone to that dinner party
Christmas eve; if Zanuck, Brown, Milchan,
Brooks and Platt hadn't had nasty divorces; if
my agent did not know Milchan's lawyer; etc.
etc.
But the strangest turn of events happened
after I had rubbed Tom Fleming's lucky charm.
In rapid succession I received five offers to
do a live straight play and a musical based on
the book.
Two producers in Italy stepped forward. I
chose one, wrote the play and it will be
performed next year in Italy and France for
starters and, as night follows day, it will
certainly hit the American market. I am
currently writing the book for a planned
Broadway musical.
Considering the book is twenty-five years old
and the movie fifteen years old, one would
think its life cycle would be over. Hell,
there's a lot more to tell about this strange
experience, some good, some bad, some weird,
some bizarre, but always baffling.
Maybe I should write a book about it. Luck or
talent?
You tell me.
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