1961-07-01 — Page 21

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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JULY 1, 1981.

The pattern

SHOW BUSINESS!

of success...

THE man who wrote the film "Ben-Hur”—it

took him three years and It paid him FOR KARĹ TUNBERG

£130,000—has come to live and work in London.

He will stay at least three years and may settle IT HAS MEANT

for a lot longer.

He is Karl Tunberg, a pleasant, soft-spoken

American who is typical of the current pattern of STARVATION—AND

Hollywood writer who feels a need to leave Holly- wood.

spent 25

Tunberg, married with two young sons, years learning his business. He is now, at 62, in a

£130,000 FOR THE

position to tell the studio where he would like to live SCRIPT OF ‘BEN-HUR’

and work.

When he started in the thirties writers were more regimented.

It was the star who was vital. not the story or the script.

"At one studio the writers were expected to clock-in every morning and they had to have a certain number of pages writ ton every week," he said,

"It wasn't quite like that for me although my studio we got a memo round one day say ing that when we went off for a drink, or wherever we were, we had to leave a phone number in case the producer should want tis,

Wo

"When

got the memo three other writers and myself hired a blimpa balloon-and we packed box lunches and flew the blimp over the studio and had our meal up in the sky. We sent a message to the producer telling him exactly where we

memo about

were

Ok

by DAVID

観

Tunberg came into alms the starvation way. He was going to be a teacher, but after a couple of terms when he won a short-story contest he decided to try his hand at writing. For two years nothing was accepted --"I lived on canned grape- fruit," to says, "and had pretty well nothing else to eat,"

LEWIN

Br .of

come over to the office for u out exactly what the writer had

and conference

Faulkner was in mind, As you learn more at home, In Louisiana-2,000 about the business there

-certain miles from, Hollywood,"

situation patterns course.

"There is the 'Blue Angel

the pattern;

reformer who becomes the victim of his own pity.

***There 14 the 'Pygmalion' used that In pattern (1

where a man Kitty")

creates something he cannot control.

There is the revenge pattern ....Ben-Hur' is basically that. And there is the group story -- the university. the Foreign Legion, the Commandos on dangerous mission with one man who cannot come to terms with the others."

Rejected

"After that the

All his original screen ploys leaving phone numbers

were rejected until he had the tacifully

You idea of turning forgotten

one of them, can't control writers like that.

"While the Crowd Cheers," Into a novel, "Today no one tries.

"When

"A studio bought the book WAS starting. William Faulkner was invited and paid me to turn it back into to Hollywood to write a scrip!

script. That was about 23 was off. I ated the red

carpet was put years ago down for him at the studio and started doing musicals after that he was given the great honour Down Argentine Way"..

I

of having a bungalow set aside for him in the grounds to work in.

Eccentricity

"Faulkner asked whether it woulst be all right for him to It was a mark work at home.

but it was ac- cepted and off Faulkner went,

of eccentricity

"Then the producer

phonea

3

Week-end 'Killy-and

and

I

in Havana'.. in one year I did five. I would be impossible

now.

sceno

"In screen writing it is idone that count, and then you must master the technique. You can't bluff in a script.

"When 11

is filmed audiences must understand it completely, because unlike

# book they cannot turn back couple of pages to see if they

П

趋

The story Karl Tunberg is writing for his nim in England In called "Nicola," about an over-cexed woman who falls in love with a man who feels at Arst he is impotent. Tunberg will write and produce two others in London on his present contract and then will probably form his own company and stay on here..

Highly paid

He is one of the most highly For 10 paid film writers today.

ecks' work on the screen play of Gogol's "Tares Bulba" he was paid around £33,000.

He pays one per cent of his

him one day to ask him tu missed anything and to and gross carnings a year as his fee

for being a member of his trade anion the Hollywood Scree Writers' Guild. He has joined jlg British counterpart here. with "Even successful writers their own agents and lawyers need some protection," he says,

are

after

like necessary

"The union Janks screen credits and things that which whether you are just starting - er whether you have been in the business for 25 years.

“We are not a closed shop: anyone who gets a job writing in studio can join and nearly everyone does."

Rented

In London the Tunbergs have runted the white-painted home of the Lord Mayor while Sr Bernard Whaley-Cohen is oc- cupying the Mansion House.

As

the Lord evidence of Mayor's dedication to the hunt there are pictures of stag everywhere, even engraved the glass

panels beneath stair rails.

on the

Why has Karl Tunberg come in with his family to live London? He joins a band of some of the best Hollywood writers and producers who have already established themselves here. They include Carl Fore- man, who made "The Guns of Normar Panama Navarone."

"The Facts of and Mel Frank.

Stanley Donen, teom Life"

Grass

Greener, "The and Nunnally Johnsen, veteran of "The Grapes of Wrath," and "How to Marry a Millionaire."

13

the

TUNDERG AND SON

0

ATMOSPHERE THE HARD WAY.

Tunberg and the others and "more atmosphere here intellectually stimulating" than Hollywood. Says Tunberg * suppose after many years in one place I wanted change, I think my children will get a better education hero andi although it is a big job geiling used to the way things are done hero--even such as order- ing the groceries--the effort in Worth it.

Effort

"Flims are international now and ideas always have been, The climate California of course, but after a while there you tend just to sit in the sun and it is too much effort to get in the car and drive to the other side of town to see a movic,"

is marvellous In

The highly pak script writer will not even miss that tradi- tional amenity of Hollywood success the swimming pool in

"You see," the back garden. he says, "I never had ona,"

NOW THAT I'M 40,

by PETER USTINOV