MONSTER 2

When we scanned her mind, we learned that her species kept rodent-like creatures…hamsters?…in similar cages. What they called "habitats." Apparently her kind were hypocrites. They enjoyed having…but didn't like…in fact, they loathed…being pets.

FADE OUT.

Few writers have been as prolific as Stirling Silliphant, whose literate yet action-filled scripts for the classic TV series Route 66 (1960-64) made me want to be a writer. Over the decades, we became friends. Indeed, thanks to his urging, NBC produced a miniseries of my novel, The Brotherhood of the Rose, A pleasant, stocky man with sandy hair, a boyish smile, and a wonderful tenor voice, he was 70 when I last saw him. During our final dinner together, he confided in me that he was being offered fewer and fewer writing assignments. "In a youth-oriented industry, I'm perceived as too old," he told me. It didn't matter that he had received an Academy Award for 1967's In the Heat of the Night, or that his script for 1968's Charly had given Cliff Robertson the opportunity to deliver an Oscar-winning performance, or that Stirling had written some of the most financially successful movies of the 1970s (The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno), fill the industry cared about was the young, new flavor of the month. In fact, most of the executives with whom Stirling had meetings were so young (in their mid-twenties) that they had never seen In the Heat of the Night, Charly, or The Towering Inferno, As for Route 66, the series had been on TV so long ago that it was re-run as a nostalgia series on Nick at Nite. Hardly the "with it" factor that executives worship. The intelligence of the industry had so declined that Stirling's agent advised him not to take a complete list of his credits to a studio interview because a: the executive wouldn't believe that anyone could write that much and b: the executive would feel intimidated.

Stirling eventually decided to chuck it all and move to Thailand, where he believed that in a past incarnation he had been an Oriental. He had what he called "a Beverly Hills garage sale," relocated to Bangkok, and became a Buddhist. We exchanged letters and tried to make plans for me to visit him, but something always interfered. In 1996, at the age of 78, he died from prostate cancer.

Tell me that again," I said. "He must have been joking."

"Mort, you know what it's like at the networks these days." My agent sighed. "Cost cutting. Layoffs. Executives so young they think Seinfeld is nostalgia. He wasn't joking. He's willing to take a meeting with you, but he's barely seen your work, and he wants a list of your credits."

"All two hundred and ninety of them? Steve, I like to think I'm not vain, but how can this guy be in charge of series development and not know what I've written?"

This conversation was on the phone. Midweek, midafternoon. I'd been revising computer printouts of what I'd written in the morning, but frustration at what Steve had told me made me press my pencil down so hard I broke its tip. Rising from my desk, I clutched the phone tighter.

Steve hesitated before he replied. "No argument. You and I know how much you contributed to television. The Golden Age. Playhouse 90. Kraft Theater. Alcoa Presents. You and Rod Serling and Paddy Chayefsky practically invented TV drama. But that was then. This executive just started his job three months ago. He's only twenty-eight, for Christ's sake. He's been clawing his way to network power since he graduated from business school. He doesn't actually watch television. He's too damned busy to watch it, except for current in-house projects. What he does is program, check the ratings, and read the trades. If you'd won your Emmys for something this season, he might be impressed. But The Sidewalks of New York? That's something they show on Nickelodeon cable reruns, a company he doesn't work for, so what does he care?"

I stared out my study window. From my home on top of the Hollywood Hills, I had a view of rushing traffic on smoggy Sunset Boulevard, of Spago, Tower Records, and Chateau Marmont. But at the moment, I saw none of them, indignation blinding me.

"Steve, am I nuts, or are the scripts I sent you good?"

"Don't put yourself down. They're better than good. They don't only grab me. They're fucking smart. I believe them, and I can't say that for…" He named a current hit series about a female detective that made him a fortune in commissions but was two-thirds tits and ass and one-third car chases.

"So what's the real problem?" I asked, unable to suppress the stridency in my voice. "Why can't I get any work?"

"The truth?"

"Since when did I tolerate lies?"

"You won't get pissed off?"

"I will get pissed off if- "

"All right already. The truth is, it doesn't matter how well you write. The fact is, you're too old. The networks think you're out of touch with their demographics."

"Out of-"

"You promised you wouldn't get pissed off."

"But after I shifted from television, I won an Oscar for The Dead of Noon."

"Twenty years ago. To the networks, that's like the Dark Ages. You know the axiom – what have you done for us lately. The fact is, Mort, for the past two years, you've been out of town, out of the country, out of the goddamn industry."

My tear ducts ached. My hurried breathing made me dizzy. "I had a good reason. The most important reason."

"Absolutely," Steve said. "In your place, I'd have done the same. And your friends respect that reason. But the movers and shakers, the new regime that doesn't give a shit about tradition, they think you died or retired, if they give you a moment's thought at all. Then isn't now. To them, last week's ratings are ancient history. What's next? they want to know. What's new? they keep asking. What they really mean is, What's young?"

"That sucks."

"Of course. But young viewers are loose with their dough, my friend, and advertisers pay the bills. So the bottom line is, the networks feel unless you're under thirty-five or better yet under thirty, you can't communicate with their target audience. It's an uphill grind for writers like you, of a certain age, no matter your talent."

"Swell." My knuckles ached as I squeezed the phone. "So what do I do? Throw my word processor out the window, and collect on my Writers Guild pension?"

" It's not as bad as that. But bear in mind, your pension is the highest any Guild member ever accumulated."

"But if I retire, I'll die like – "

"No, what I'm saying is be patient with this network kid. He needs a little educating. Politely, you understand. Just pitch your idea, look confident and dependable, show him your credits. He'll come around. It's not as if you haven't been down this path before."

"When I was in my twenties."

"There you go. You identify with this kid already. You're in his mind."

My voice dropped." When's the meeting?"

"Friday. His office. I pulled in some favors to get you in so soon. Four p.m. I'll be at my house in Malibu. Call me when you're through."

"Steve…"

"Yeah, Mort?"

"Thanks for sticking with me."

"Hey, it's an honor. To me, you're a legend."

"What I need to be is a working legend."

"I've done what I can. Now it's up to you."

"Sure." I set down the phone, discovered I still had my broken pencil in one hand, dropped it, and massaged the aching knuckles of my other hand.

The reason I'd left L. A. two years ago, at the age of sixty-eight, was that my dear wife -