DARRYL PONICSAN
His first novel, published in 1970 by the Dial Press, was based on his Navy experience. Two petty officers are assigned the detail of escorting a 18 year old sailor from Norfolk, Va. to Portsmouth, N.H. for an 8 year sentence.
The book served as the basis for the movie starring Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid. It received three Academy nominations.
“One of the ten best novels of the year.” Philadelphia Inquirer
A burned-out high school teacher tries to make meaningful human contact, but always ends up the buffoon in the center ring of a three-ring circus which is his life. This book was optioned by the director Bryan Forbes but it was never produced.
Obviously based on Ponicsan’s hometown, Shenandoah. It is said that his parents thought they would have to move out of town when the book was published. Instead, the author was given the key to the city, which was renamed for that day only to Andoshen.
ABC optioned the book for a series but the pilot was never shot.
In 1973 Ponicsan switched publishers, to Harper & Row. A bitter-sweet romantic comedy, CINDERELLA LIBERTY follows a sailor whose records have been lost.
Produced as a movie, starring James Caan and Marsha Mason. Like his other Navy movie, this film received three Academy nominations. Ponicsan wrote the screenplay and was nominated for a Golden Globe, and a Writers Guild Award. He was named Screenwriter of the Year by the NAACP, which gave him an Image Award.
Ponicsan’s first and only book which could be called a crime novel. An obsessive mother hires two thugs to murder her policeman son’s wife.
Optioned by an independent New York company as a vehicle for Lauren Bacall, but the movie was never made.
Published by Delacorte, a biographical novel about the silent film star Tom Mix, another departure for Ponicsan.
20th Century Fox bought the book for Paul Newman and Robert Redford. It was considered too expensive to produce and remains on the shelf.
Growing out of the research on the Tom Mix book, Ponicsan traveled with a three-ring tent circus in 1976. He worked at several jobs under the big top, including a stint as Randy the Clown.
This book, too, was optioned for a film but was never produced.
AN UNMARRIED MAN is the last book Ponicsan would publish for 25 years, and his most sexually explicit. A successful wood sculptor ends a loveless marriage and soon finds a new life with a passionate Mexican woman.
One reason he may have stopped writing novels was that he was much in demand as a screenwriter. Another was that he had to defend himself in a lawsuit over the book, which was settled but left him unwilling to go where you had to go to write novels. It is the only book he wrote which was never optioned or sold to films.
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ADDITIONAL CREDITS:
In television, Ponicsan created a series called THE MISSISSIPPI, starring Ralph Waite, which ran for two seasons. He also wrote a movie-of-the-week called A GIRL NAMED HATTER FOX, for which he was nominated for another Writers Guild Award. THE ENEMY WITHIN, starring Forrest Whittaker, an HBO movie, was written by Ponicsan.
He also had a long career as a screenwriter. His produced films (and leading actors):
The Last Detail (Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid)
Cinderella Liberty (James Caan, Marsha Mason)
Taps (Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn, Tom Cruise)
Visionquest (Matthew Modine, Linda Fiorentino)
The Boost (James Woods, Sean Young)
Nuts (Barbra Streisand, Richard Dryfuss)
School Ties (Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck)
Random Hearts (Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas)
Note: In THE BOOST, also produced by Ponicsan, he hired himself as an actor, using the name Jack Sargent. In his one scene, he jogs the beach with James Woods, pitching him an investment opportunity. In NUTS, he played a man at a bar, leering at Barbra Streisand, under his own name.
