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If you had only one book, and you were on a deserted island, what would that book be?

JB - Scott Fitzgerald, Michelangelo, Bill Clinton, Thomas Jefferson & Marquis de Sade.

Procrastination or ‘just do it’?

JB - Just do it.

PH – John, tell me a bit about growing up in Middleton, NY and then heading off to Tufts University.

JB – Middletown is the epitome of small town America, lots of inbreeding and too many malls. I went to Tufts at the height of the 60’s so I was out demonstrating more than inside studying. Of course, demonstrations were where the girls were, which was an important draw.

PH – Your books and feature scripts are full of comedy. When you were young, were you the class clown?

JB – Guilty as charged. Never could resist an opportunity to crack wise, a trait I find annoying in other people. Class idiot might be a better description.

PH – When did you have your first inclination that writing was to become your life?

JB – Early. I was writing for newspapers at 18. Writing seemed like the best way to make money without going to work. The fact that I could live anywhere and do it was appealing. Plus you didn’t need a lot of expensive equipment to do it. Just a pencil.

PH – Is there one special person in the writing industry that’s affected the way you write, or view the art of writing?

JB – Maxine Kumin taught a creative writing class at Tufts and was excellent. Beyond that, no.

PH – You’ve had a couple of feature films, “Short Time” with Dabney Coleman and Teri Garr for 20^th Century Fox, and “Blue Streak” with Martin Lawrence with Columbia Pictures. Was “Short Time” the first screenplay you’d written?

JB – Heck no. I’d written about 10 prior to that. A few options, but no big sales.

PH – “Blue Streak” was a very funny movie. How close was the script you wrote to the one in the can?

JB – Plot wise, very close. Dialogue-wise, less close. I think altogether 14 writers contributed to that script over a period of 10 years. But all the prepositions and several nouns were part of the original script.

PH – How long did your first script take and how many re-writes were there before it was accepted?

JB – Two drafts before it was bought. After that, maybe 40 rewrites. I’m not sure.

PH – Were you able to have any participation in the movie process once you sold the script?

PH – You’ve got a book out called, “What’s Wrong With Dorfman?” Here’s a couple of excerpt from your Dorfman Website;

“Dorfman, he's a cynic, a hypochondriac, a burned-out screenwriter, and a man with a decidedly scatological sense of humor. In the midst of navigating his latest screenplay through Hollywood Development Hell, Dorman develops a mysterious disease with bizarre symptoms. After a battery of tests, his doctors are stumped, so Dorfman sets out on an odyssey to find a cure, a quest that takes him to the fringes of alternative medicine."

JB – Not a word. Just because I’m a cynical, hypochondriacally burned-out screenwriter with a scatological sense of humor, who woke up one morning with a mysterious disease doesn’t mean it’s autobiographical.

PH – And for the last question, what is the one question that you’ve never been asked in an interview?

PH – John, thank you very much for your time and good luck with your future projects.

You can email Paul Heckmann with interview
suggestions and leads at Paul Heckmann.

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