{"id":3390,"date":"2015-11-06T09:07:34","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T16:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/?p=3390"},"modified":"2015-11-06T09:07:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T16:07:34","slug":"sad-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/sad-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Sad News :-{"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Melissa Mathison, co-screenwriter on Black Stallion and many other famous films,<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/melissa-mathison.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3399\" src=\"http:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/melissa-mathison.jpg\" alt=\"Mandatory Credit: Photo by Harry Myers\/REX Shutterstock (622206f) Melissa Mathison and Harrison Ford 'E.T.' Film Premiere, London, Britain - 09 Dec 1982\" width=\"670\" height=\"377\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/melissa-mathison.jpg 670w, https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/melissa-mathison-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 670px) 100vw, 670px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>has passed away this week.<br \/>\nWe will miss her as a writer and friend.<br \/>\nHere is the story in the LA Times;<\/p>\n<div class=\"trb_ar_la\">\n<aside class=\"trb_embed\" data-state=\"lightbox_lightboxClosed\" data-content-id=\"84932170\" data-content-key=\"e11ebc50dfb5399d39c7a9b1ca3218fa\" data-content-size=\"leadart\" data-content-type=\"gallery\" data-content-subtype=\"photogallery\" data-content-slug=\"la-melissa-mathison-pg-20151104\" data-role=\"carousel lightbox_container imgsize_ratiosizecontainer\" data-carousel-options=\"outer&amp;removePagesOnClose\">\n<div class=\"trb_embed_modalBox\" data-role=\"carousel_view\">\n<div class=\"trb_embed_media \">\n<aside class=\"trb_embed trb_embed_thumb\" data-content-id=\"84932170\" data-content-size=\"leadart\" data-content-type=\"image\" data-content-subtype=\"photo\">\n<div class=\"trb_embed_media \">\n<figure class=\"trb_embed_imageContainer_figure\" data-role=\"lightbox_open imgsize_item\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"trb_embed_imageContainer_img\" title=\"Melissa Mathison\" src=\"http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-563aa57b\/turbine\/la-melissa-mathison-pg-20151104\/750\/750x422\" alt=\"Melissa Mathison\" data-height=\"450\" data-width=\"750\" data-ratio=\"16x9\" data-baseurl=\"http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-563aa57b\/turbine\/la-melissa-mathison-pg-20151104\" data-content-naturalwidth=\"2048\" data-content-naturalheight=\"1412\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"trb_embed_related trb_embed_gallerywhole\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"trb_ar_by\">\n<figure class=\"trb_ar_by_i_f\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"trb_ar_by_i\" title=\"Steve Chawkins\" src=\"http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-535da568\/turbine\/la-bio-steve-chawkins\/70\/70x70\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-535da568\/turbine\/la-bio-steve-chawkins\/140\/140x140 2x, http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-535da568\/turbine\/la-bio-steve-chawkins\/210\/210x210 3x\" alt=\"Steve Chawkins\" width=\"70\" height=\"70\" \/><\/figure>\n<p><span class=\"trb_ar_by_nm_pm\"><span class=\"trb_ar_by_nm_au\" data-byline-withoutby=\"\"><a class=\"trb_ar_by_nm_au_a\" href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/la-bio-steve-chawkins-staff.html#navtype=byline\">Steve Chawkins <\/a><\/span><a class=\"trb_ar_by_cl\" href=\"mailto:steve.chawkins@latimes.com?subject=Regarding:%20%22Melissa%20Mathison%20dies%20at%2065;%20screenwriter%20of%20%27E.T.,%27%20%27Black%20Stallion,%27%20%27Kundun%27%22\" data-role=\"socialshare_sEmail\">Contact Reporter<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"trb_ar_dateline\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"trb_ar_page\" data-role=\"pagination_page\" data-content-page=\"1\">\n<p>Screenwriter Melissa Mathison, whose enormously successful \u201cE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial\u201d became a landmark in film history, specialized in stories revolving around children. But, as she often said, she made a point of not condescending to them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI go to movies with my children and see fat kids burping, parents portrayed as total morons, and kids being mean and materialistic, and I feel it\u2019s really slim pickin\u2019s out there,\u201d she told The Times in 1995. \u201cThere\u2019s a little dribble of a moral tacked on, but the story is not about that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019d get back in the car after seeing a movie and I\u2019d say, \u2018Now what did you think about this?,\u2019 and they\u2019d have nothing to say.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mathison, 65, who portrayed children as sensitively heroic, died Wednesday at UCLA Medical Center. The cause was neuroendocrine cancer, her brother Dirk Mathison said.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"trb_ar_sponsoredmod\" data-adloader-networktype=\"yieldmo\" data-role=\"delayload_item\" data-screen-size=\"mobile\" data-withinviewport-options=\"bottomOffset=100\" data-load-method=\"trb.vendor.yieldmo.init\" data-load-type=\"method\">\n<div id=\"ym_1082601812867266781\"><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<aside class=\"trb_embed \" data-content-id=\"84932707\" data-content-size=\"small\" data-content-type=\"story\" data-content-slug=\"la-et-et-20-years-later-22020322\" data-content-subtype=\"story\" data-role=\"socialshare_item imgsize_ratiosizecontainer \" data-state=\" \">\n<div class=\"trb_embed_media \">\n<figure class=\"trb_embed_imageContainer_figure\" data-role=\"imgsize_item\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"trb_embed_imageContainer_img\" title=\"Twenty years later, 'E.T.' still brings it all home\" src=\"http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-563aa3d9\/turbine\/la-et-et-20-years-later-22020322\/400\/400x225\" alt=\"Twenty years later, 'E.T.' still brings it all home\" data-height=\"250\" data-width=\"400\" data-ratio=\"16x9\" data-baseurl=\"http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-563aa3d9\/turbine\/la-et-et-20-years-later-22020322\" data-content-naturalwidth=\"2048\" data-content-naturalheight=\"1350\" \/><\/figure>\n<div class=\"trb_embed_related\" data-role=\"lightbox_metadata\"><a class=\"trb_embed_media_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment\/movies\/la-et-et-20-years-later-22020322-story.html\"><span class=\"trb_embed_related_title\">Twenty years later, &#8216;E.T.&#8217; still brings it all home<\/span> <\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Mathison\u2019s film credits also include \u201cThe Black Stallion\u201d (1979), \u201cThe Escape Artist\u201d (1982) and \u201cThe Indian in the Cupboard\u201d (1995).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKundun\u201d (1997), a movie about the Dalai Lama\u2019s childhood and growth into a young man, reflected her decades-long interest in Tibet.<\/p>\n<p>She received an Oscar nomination for her work on Steven Spielberg\u2019s \u201cE.T.,\u201d which was released in 1982.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMelissa had a heart that shined with generosity and love and burned as bright as the heart she gave E.T.,\u201d the director said in a statement Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cE.T.\u201d was the story of a young boy in the suburbs and the alien he befriended. While Spielberg had wrestled with the idea of a film about a stranded alien for some time, he asked Mathison to develop the plot.<\/p>\n<p>She described it years later as a \u201cboy-meets-dog story.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a story of resurrection and redemption.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When it opened, Times critic Sheila Benson said it was \u201cso full of love and wonder, of pure invention, and the best kind of screen magic, that it\u2019s not only the film of the summer, it may be the film of the decade and possible the double decade.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"trb_embed \" data-content-id=\"84932745\" data-content-size=\"small\" data-content-type=\"story\" data-content-slug=\"la-et-indian-in-the-cupboard-melissa-mathison-20151104\" data-content-subtype=\"story\" data-role=\"socialshare_item imgsize_ratiosizecontainer \" data-state=\" \">\n<div class=\"trb_embed_media \">\n<figure class=\"trb_embed_imageContainer_figure\" data-role=\"imgsize_item\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"trb_embed_imageContainer_img\" title=\"With 'The Indian in the Cupboard,' Melissa Mathison hopes she's written a script for the ages\" src=\"http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-563aa457\/turbine\/la-et-indian-in-the-cupboard-melissa-mathison-20151104\/400\/400x225\" alt=\"With 'The Indian in the Cupboard,' Melissa Mathison hopes she's written a script for the ages\" data-height=\"250\" data-width=\"400\" data-ratio=\"16x9\" data-baseurl=\"http:\/\/www.trbimg.com\/img-563aa457\/turbine\/la-et-indian-in-the-cupboard-melissa-mathison-20151104\" data-content-naturalwidth=\"1785\" data-content-naturalheight=\"1356\" \/><\/figure>\n<div class=\"trb_embed_related\" data-role=\"lightbox_metadata\"><a class=\"trb_embed_media_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment\/la-et-indian-in-the-cupboard-melissa-mathison-20151104-story.html\"><span class=\"trb_embed_related_title\">With &#8216;The Indian in the Cupboard,&#8217; Melissa Mathison hopes she&#8217;s written a script for the ages<\/span> <\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Mathison, she said, \u201cseems to know the newly separated young family, that sad American statistic, from its cracked heart out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mathison spent eight weeks writing \u201cE.T.\u201d It made $793 million at the box office worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>She had two children, Georgia and Malcolm, from her marriage to actor Harrison Ford. They divorced in 2004 after a 21-year marriage.<\/p>\n<p>From 1983 to 1985, Mathison, Ford and their children lived on a 700-acre ranch outside Jackson Hole, Wyo., where the screenwriter put her career on hold.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have two little children,\u201d she told Newsweek. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to be missing their childhood while I was away, busy writing about children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Born in Los Angeles on June 3, 1950, Mathison grew up in the Hollywood Hills, one of five children born to Richard Mathison, who was The Los Angeles Times&#8217; religion editor in the 1950s before becoming Newsweek\u2019s Los Angeles bureau chief, and his wife, Pegeen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe weren\u2019t your mainstream \u201950s family,\u201d she said in a Times interview. \u201cBoth my parents had wonderful, eccentric, artistic friends who treated us as friends as well. How your mind worked was considered important.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even though Hollywood was essentially Mathison\u2019s hometown, she still felt a certain thrill at being around show business.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember not really caring that much about the Hollywood premieres because they were always so crowded,\u201d she told the Toronto Globe and Mail in 1982. \u201cBut if something like a stagecoach drove by followed by a camera crew, I got really excited.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She went to UC Berkeley, where she interrupted her studies in political science for a job in the movies with a family friend. The friend was Francis Ford Coppola, whose children she used to baby sit. Mathison became his assistant on the set of \u201cThe Godfather, Part II.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She was soon hooked on film. After Coppola urged her to write, she came up with her script for \u201cThe Black Stallion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, Mathison became fascinated by Buddhism and Tibet. In college, she later said, she thought the story of the exiled Dalai Lama would make a great movie. She turned that story into \u201cKundun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am sort of famous for little-boy stories, and this was a fantastic little-boy story, a story of destiny and nurturing and tragedy, the idea of finding a 2-year-old child and then investing in him everything that is good about human beings, your people and your beliefs,\u201d she told the New York Times in 1996.<\/p>\n<p>With the help of actor Richard Gere, a supporter of Tibetan causes, she and Ford met with the Dalai Lama in Santa Barbara in 1990. At that meeting and subsequent visits in Santa Cruz and in India, she pitched the notion of a film based on his early years.<\/p>\n<p>The Tibetan spiritual leader wanted \u201ceverything to be as correct as possible,\u201d she said in a 1998 interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer. \u201cEach time we met I would bring him new scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mathison\u2019s last film is due for release in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe BFG,\u201d which stands for \u201cbig friendly giant,\u201d reunited her with Spielberg, who directed it. Based on a 1982 children\u2019s story by Roald Dahl, the film stars Mark Rylance as the title character, with Bill Hader and Rebecca Hall.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to her children and brother Dirk, Mathison\u2019s survivors include her sisters Melinda Johnson and Stephanie Mathison; and brother Mark Mathison.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:steve.chawkins@latimes.com\">steve.chawkins@latimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Melissa Mathison, co-screenwriter on Black Stallion and many other famous films, has passed away this week. We will miss her as a writer and friend. Here is the story in the LA Times; Steve Chawkins Contact Reporter Screenwriter Melissa Mathison, whose enormously successful \u201cE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial\u201d became a landmark in film history, specialized in stories &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[595,596,597,541],"class_list":["post-3390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-et","tag-harrison-ford","tag-indian-in-the-cuboard","tag-melissa-mathison"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3390"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3400,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3390\/revisions\/3400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}