Melissa Mathison
| Melissa Mathison | |
|---|---|
| Born | Melissa Marie Mathison[1] June 3, 1950 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Neuroendocrine cancer |
| Occupation | Screenwriter |
| Years active | 1979–2015 |
| Spouse(s) | Harrison Ford (m. 1983; div. 2004) |
| Children | 2 |
Melissa Marie Mathison (June 3, 1950 – November 4, 2015) was an American film and television screenwriter and an activist for Tibetan freedom. She was best known for writing the screenplays for the films The Black Stallion (1979); E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay; and Kundun (1997), a biographical-drama film about the Dalai Lama, the exiled political and spiritual leader of Tibet.
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Early years
Melissa Mathison was born on June 3, 1950 in Los Angeles, California, one of five siblings. Her father, Richard Randolph Mathison, was a journalist, the Los Angeles bureau chief of Newsweek. Her mother was Margaret Jean (née Kieffer) Mathison, a food writer and convenience-foods entrepreneur. After completing high school, Mathison attended the University of California, Berkeley.[2] Her family was friendly with Francis Ford Coppola, whose children were babysat by Mathison. Coppola offered her a job as his assistant on The Godfather Part II, an opportunity for which she left her studies at UC Berkeley.[2]
With Coppola’s encouragement, she wrote a script for The Black Stallion, adapted from the novel, that caught the attention of Steven Spielberg.[3]
Screenwriting and production credits
Mathison wrote the screen play for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in collaboration with Steven Spielberg. It was nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay.[4] The screenplay was based on a story that Spielberg provided to Mathison during the filming of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Spielberg attributes the line "E.T. phone home" to Mathison.[5] She collaborated again with Spielberg for The BFG, which is to be released in 2016. She also had film credits for The Escape Artist and The Indian in the Cupboard.[2]
Dalai Lama
Mathison knew the Dalai Lama from 1990 when she wrote the script for Kundun, and she developed a lasting friendship with him from that time on. She continued to work as an activist for Tibetan freedom and was on the board of the International Campaign for Tibet.[6]
Personal life and death
From 1983 to 2004, Mathison was married to Harrison Ford; they had two children together. She died on November 4, 2015 in Los Angeles, aged 65, from neuroendocrine cancer.[2]
Her final film The BFG will be dedicated in her memory.
Screenwriting filmography
| Year | Title | Genre | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | The Black Stallion | family-adventure | |
| 1982 | E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial | fantasy-adventure-science fiction | Nominated – Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, (1983) The line "E.T. phone home." is ranked 15th among the top 100 quotations of U.S. cinema by the American Film Institute. |
| The Escape Artist | drama | ||
| 1983 | Twilight Zone: The Movie | science fiction-thriller | segment 2, "Kick the Can"; credited as "Josh Rogan" |
| 1991 | Son of the Morning Star | western | television film |
| 1995 | The Indian in the Cupboard | family-adventure | |
| 1997 | Kundun | biographical-drama | |
| 2008 | Ponyo | animated, family-adventure | storyline consultant, English-language translation |
| 2016 | The BFG | family | Posthumous release |
References
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- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.]
- ↑ "Melissa Mathison: a masterful storyteller who brought ET to life", The Guardian, November 5, 2015.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Melissa Mathison, A Conversation with the Dalai Lama, Rolling Stone, 21 July 2011
External links
| Other media | |
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| People |
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| Related articles | |
- Articles with hCards
- No local image but image on Wikidata
- 1950 births
- 2015 deaths
- American screenwriters
- American women screenwriters
- Tibet freedom activists
- Writers from Los Angeles, California
- University of California, Berkeley alumni
- 20th-century American writers
- 20th-century women writers
- 21st-century American writers
- 21st-century women writers
- Cancer deaths in California
