Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013, March 17, 2000, Page 38, Image 38

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38
BOOKS
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Loud and clear, proud and queer
A profile of Hollywood hotshot Kevin Williamson
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sk most adults in the real world who
Kevin Williamson is, and you’re likely to
be met with a blank stare. But ask any
teen-ager or any adult in the reel world
of Hollywood and you’ll get a
litany of answers. Chief among
them is that Kevin Williamson
revitalized the horror film
industry by writing films such as
Scream and Scream 2 ,1 Know
What You Did Last Summer, and
The Faculty. He also helped pro­
pel teen television drama and
the fledgling WB Network to
both ratings heights and social
responsibility with his first tele­
vision series, Dawson’s Creek.
Most importantly to the
queer audience, Williamson is
an openly gay screenwriter—
and arguably the hottest scribe
in Hollywood— who is using his
success and clout to entertain
and influence the youthful gen­
eration.
Bom in New Bern, S.C.,
Williamson aspired to be a film­
maker like his movie idols
Steven Spielberg and John Car­
penter. He faced a turning point
in his life in high school: a
teacher who was determined to
crush his dreams. When he read
aloud a story about date rape in
an English class, the teacher
roared at him to sit down.
“She just yanked it out of my hands, and
tore.it up,” Williamson recalls. “She said, ‘You
can’t write, you’re from the sticks of North
Carolina, you are illiterate, you’re ignorant, you
can’t speak, your diction is terrible, you can’t
articulate yourself. Just give up. Just go get into
fast foods. You’re never going to be a writer.
Your voice shouldn’t be heard!’ ”
After years of believing his teacher and
working as a struggling actor in New York and
Hollywood, Williamson took a class in screen-
writing at U C L A and joined a writers group. It
was there that he penned Teaching Mrs. Tingle,
a dark comedy about a hateful teacher and the
students who confronted her, which in 1999
became his directorial debut, marking closure
for the trauma of Williamson’s youth.
While in the writers group, Williamson also
conceived the Scream trilogy. When the first
Scream script was bought in a fierce Hollywood
by
A ndy M angels
bidding war, he became the new hot property
in town. The astonishing $100 million-plus
successes of Scream and 1 Know What You Did
Last Summer solidified his credentials in Tinsel-
,
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■ ■■
■■ : ■■
story line on Dawson’s Creek in which one of
the main characters, teen-ager Jack McPhee
(played by Kerr Sm ith), came out o f the closet
to friends and family. Williamson also publicly
came out, in interviews with the New York
Daily News and The A divcate, telling the
latter that he “wanted to explore the com­
plexities of a young boy coming to terms
with his homosexuality, very much the way
I did in a small town.”
Although Williamson’s second televi­
sion series, A B C ’s Wasteland (also featuring
a gay lead character), didn’t fare well in the
ratings, Williamson is still hot in the mar­
ket. Scream 3, based on his treatment and
characters, is an $82 million hit, and he’s
busy at work on several new film projects.
He’s supervising and will direct a romantic
comedy called Her Leading M an, in which a
gay man tries to help refashion a straight
man Cyrano-style to win back his girl­
friend. And he’s working on an action
thriller that reportedly has an A ID S
researcher as its main character.
In the six years since he sold his first
screenplay, 34-year-old Williamson has
proven his passion in Hollywood and has
worked his way into an elite group of writ­
ers whose names will sell movie tickets and
draw television ratings. The American pub­
lic has recognized what his English teacher
did not— that Kevin Williamson’s voice
should indeed be heard.
Most im portantly
to the queer
■ audience,
Kevin Williamson
is an openly gay
screenwriter—
and arguably
the hottest scribe
i
in Hollywood —
who is using his
success and clout
to entertain
S sN
A
and influence
ê
the youthful
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generation
town, but Williamson was­
n’t content to ride on hor­
ror. He had already sold the
W B on a new teen drama
series about friends grow­
ing up in the fictional
town of Capeside, Mass.
Dawson’s Creek
debuted with huge ratings
and great reviews, and the
autobiographical elements
of the story lines made
Williamson an unofficial
cast member in most
press stories.
In February 1998,
after having gay and les­
bian references in almost
all of his projects,
Williamson initiated a
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FROM
1
An Unauthorized
Take on the
Phenomenal Career
of Kevin Williamson
' l S U
F rom S cream to D awson ' s C reek :
A n U nauthorized T ake on the P henomenal C areer
of K evin W illiamson
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By Andy Mangels. Renaissance Books, 2000; $16.95 softcover.
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nyone who’s a fan of Kevin Williamson, the most famous openly
gay screenwriter alive today, will surely Find much to enjoy in this
thorough look at his career. It certainly helps that author Andy
•Mangels shares his subject’s passion for classic horror films and is well-
versed in the nuances of the genre.
The first fourth of the book examines Williamson’s early years, his
development as a writer and his brief detour into acting. Remarkably,
nearly everything Williamson has done in his life seems to have con­
tributed to his current success. He is one of those fortunate beings who
figured out his life’s path while he was just a little boy spending his Sat­
urdays at the local cinema, staring at the big screen and daring to
imagine his own road to Hollywood.
In the latter sections of the book. Mangels scrutinizes each of
Williamson’9 films and television series— and includes eight pages of
0 \
mäm
ANDY MANGELS
color photos— offering complete cast and crew
profiles, as well as a guide to the first year’s episodes o f Dawson’s Creek.
These chapters also fill in details about Williamson’s busy life after his
career went into overdrive.
Based on numerous interviews and much research, this book could
well inspire some other wannabe writers daring to dream their own
happily-cver-after plots.
—Oriana Green