Lawrence D. Cohen
{{short description|American dramatist}}
{{About|the American screenwriter|the American politician|Lawrence D. Cohen (politician)}}
{{Infobox person
|name = Lawrence D. Cohen
|birth_name =
|image =
| nationality = American
|birth_date =
|birth_place =
|occupation = Screenwriter, Producer, Playwright
| known_for = Carrie
}}
Lawrence D. Cohen is an American screenwriter and producer, best known for his work on several adaptations of Stephen King's Carrie,[http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Broadway_Producers_Putting_Together_Fall_Reading_of_CARRIE_THE_MUSICAL_20091017 "Broadway Producers Putting Together Fall Reading of CARRIE: THE MUSICAL" – Broadway World][https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/29/theater/broadway-chilling-carrie-in-vengeful-return-as-a-musical.html "BROADWAY; CHILLING 'CARRIE' IN VENGEFUL RETURN – AS A MUSICAL" – New York Times] including Brian De Palma's 1976 film and Kimberly Peirce's 2013 film.
Career
Carrie was both the first Stephen King novel to be published and the first to be adapted into a feature film.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/04/carrie-stephen-king-horror|title=How Carrie Changed Stephen King's Life, and Began a Generation of Horror|access-date=April 6, 2017|newspaper=The Guardian|date=April 4, 2014|archive-date=February 15, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190215160005/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/04/carrie-stephen-king-horror|url-status=live}} During an interview in 2010, King said he was 26 years old at the time and was paid just $2,500 for the film rights, but added, "I was fortunate to have that happen to my first book."{{cite journal | last = Stetson | first= Nancy | date = March 25–31, 2010 | title = King rules The Big read for a day in Port Charlotte | journal = Florida Weekly | pages =B8 }} Newspaper column review of a live interview by Christy Arnold of King onstage at the Cultural Center of Charlotte County, Florida, March 20, 2010: "Although the film "Carrie" is dated now, he said he thought it was a good movie. 'I was fortunate to have that happen to my first book.' (He was 26 years old and was paid $2,500, he said.)" Cohen was hired, and scripted the first draft, which had closely followed the novel's intentions.{{cite video | title =Visualising Carrie: From Words to Images | publisher=United Artists |year=2001}} United Artists, the studio behind the film, accepted the second draft but only allocated director De Palma a budget of $1.6 million.{{cite book|author=Neil Mitchell|title=Carrie|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xds3BAAAQBAJ|date=5 August 2014|publisher=Auteur Publishing|isbn=978-1-906733-92-6|page=31|access-date=November 2, 2016|archive-date=April 6, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170406203822/https://books.google.com/books?id=xds3BAAAQBAJ|url-status=live}} Certain scripted scenes were omitted from the final version, due to finance.{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10474858/Carrie-the-growing-pains-of-a-horror-classic.html|title=How Carrie: the Growing Pains of a Horror Classic|access-date=April 6, 2017|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=November 26, 2013|archive-date=April 6, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170406211236/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10474858/Carrie-the-growing-pains-of-a-horror-classic.html|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=https://sites.google.com/site/cultoddities/home/carrie/carrie-1976/press/sissy-spacek-interviews|title=Sissy Spacek Interviews – Cult Oddities|website=sites.google.com|access-date=September 13, 2017|archive-date=February 2, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202082250/https://sites.google.com/site/cultoddities/home/carrie/carrie-1976/press/sissy-spacek-interviews|url-status=live}} Several decades later, he would oversee rewrites on the 2013 remake.
Following this Cohen scripted a simplified film adaptation of Peter Straub's novel Ghost Story in 1981.[https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/16/movies/ghost-story-tells-of-50-year-old-mystery.html?scp=30&sq=Peter+Straub&st=nyt "'GHOST STORY' TELLS OF 50-YEAR-OLD MYSTERY" – New York Times] He also adapted two other King novels to television miniseries, the 1990 version of It[https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/16/arts/tv-weekend-stephen-king-s-mad-clown-returns.html?pagewanted=1 "TV WEEKEND; Stephen King's Mad Clown Returns" – New York Times] and the 1993 version of The Tommyknockers. In 2001, he wrote an adaptation of the musical South Pacific. Several new scenes, such as Nellie and Emile's first meeting at the officer's club, were added, and a new character was created to serve as Nellie's best friend and confidante. In 2006, he wrote a segment for the TV series Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King.
In 1981, Cohen began to work on a musical adaptation of Carrie, which premiered in 1988 on Broadway to negative reviews and closed after only 16 previews and 5 performances. In 2012, the musical was revived Off Broadway for a limited engagement at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (with Cohen revising the book).[http://brooklynrail.org/2012/03/theater/resuscitating-carrielawrence-d-cohen-with-tommy-smith Smith, Tommy. "Resuscitating Carrie," Brooklyn Rail, March 2012]
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|id=0169548}}
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Category:20th-century American screenwriters
Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
Category:21st-century American screenwriters
Category:American male screenwriters