Hell Must Have Frozen Over

Photograph, © 2025 Debra Weiss

Once upon a time in Hollywood I was a screenwriter. I began a career in the feature film industry working in development for the producer who owned the literary material that would become the film version of Cabaret. It is safe to say that he was the most erudite person I've ever met. He also had the biggest balls of anyone I knew.

And so began a decades long relationship whether officially working for him or not where I could just say "buy it/don't buy it". It's an incredible thing to have someone place that much trust in your instincts and honestly, at the time I didn't understand it.

Because he was an A list producer, I was fortunate to be the first person to read works such as Romancing the Stone, Red Dragon, Big Trouble in Little China, And Justice for All and too many others to name. Sometimes, they got made, most times not. That's just the way things worked in Hollywood. But I was given entrée into a world of experiences I could not have imagined.

Eventually, after reading and dissecting hundreds of scripts and working with writers developing their work, I decided to write my own. I knew a very talented writer and we agreed we should work together. And we beat the odds. A friend sent the script to the William Morris Agency at 9am on a Monday morning and at noon over lunch we were signed with the agency. It was an amazing feeling. It was even more amazing when Castle Rock wanted to option the script a couple of days later.

Knowing our script would make a good TV series, we were aware that it had to be a feature film due to a due to a particular scene. According to the Writer's Guild, it was the first of its kind - a gay wedding. This was 1980 and the likelihood of my waking up the next day as a nuclear physicist was greater than a gay wedding finding its way into a television show.

Believing that gay people had every right to be as miserable as anyone else - and because the scene was more than likely genuinely original, we were adamant about it being produced as a feature. Castle Rock wanted it for TV. We thanked them for their interest convinced there would be someone who saw it our way. There's a lesson in there - maybe two, although I haven't yet decided what they are. We had several meetings not only about that script but were called in and considered for book adaptations but none of those projects were right for us. And no one would touch the gay wedding.

Fun fact: The 1993 film, "The Wedding Banquet" is considered ground breaking for its portrayal of a gay wedding. It was Oscar nominated and made a lot of money.

There were other scripts and ideas but ironically what broke up the writing partnership was exactly what our first script was about - can a man and a woman really be friends?

Fun fact 2 - This was nine years before "When Harry Met Sally" was released.

I have not written in a very long time. I have a love/hate relationship with writing as I know many writers with the same affliction. Right now I'm choosing to love it.

The process is often painfully joyous at the same time. While I had experienced moments that were seemingly designed to crush one's soul, there were the other moments - the great ones.

And being on a studio lot, especially at that time I can only liken to your first time in a darkroom printing and watching your image appear on the paper - it was magic.