Screenings: Peter Pan and Rebel Without a Cause
Few screenwriters can boast a track record as consistent in quality as Stewart Stern. He is a screenwriter’s screenwriter. Even his unproduced scripts have a reputation for brilliance.
His first produced script, Teresa (1951), written for his early mentor Fred Zinnemann, was nominated for an Oscar. That film’s success was due in large part to Stern’s casting of Pier Angeli in the lead role, after Zinnemann had entrusted his writer with searching Italy for both locations and actors. (Stern had an unusual career for a writer in that he was routinely pulled away from his typewriter and involved in the wider filmmaking process).
Zinneman’s documentary Benjy (1951), scripted by Stern, won an Academy Award the same year that Teresa was nominated. These successes led to Stern scripting the classic Rebel Without a Cause (1955), which remains perhaps his best-known work. Later screenplays include The Ugly American with Marlon Brando (Writers Guild Award nomination) and Rachel, Rachel (WGA and Academy Award nominations), with longtime friends Paul Newman, who directed, and Joanne Woodward, who starred. Turning his attention to television, Stern won an Emmy for the TV film Sybil with Woodward and Sally Field.
Nephew of Paramount founder Adolph Zukor and relative of the Loew family of MGM, Stern is one of Hollywood’s true elites from Hollywood’s Golden Age. He now shares his considerable talents by teaching and mentoring young screenwriters. A master storyteller in person as well as on the printed page, Stewart Stern will provide illumination to audiences of Rebel Without a Cause and Peter Pan at this year’s Virginia Film Festival.
