As a student at Northwestern University, Larry Brody majored in English
and practiced his craft writing dozens of short stories, poetry and
essays. Being an avid science fiction fan, he started writing in the
genre, and by the time he graduated he was selling stories to The
Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction and various men's magazines on a
fairly regular basis. After graduation he took a major career diversion
by going to Law School but quit after one year and enrolled at the
University of Iowa, which was well-known for its Writers Workshop.
During that first school year Larry sold his first novel. Armed with
confidence from the book sale, LB and his first wife pulled up stakes
and moved to L.A. in 1968. It was a tough adjustment for the young
couple, both emotionally and financially. Larry's wife got a full-time
teaching job while he struggled to finish his next novel, and take
meetings with various showbiz power-brokers, hoping, like thousands of
other Hollywood denizens, for his first big break. That big break came
several months later through a chance meeting with a fellow resident of
his apartment building, Sammy Jackson, star of the just cancelled
series "No Time for Sergeants".
Painfully shy at the time, Larry avoided Jackson and sat quietly by the
pool, reading scripts and working on his novel. But one fateful day,
Sammy spotted a script lying in LB's lap and walked over to introduce
himself. The two struck up a friendship that would ultimately launch
Larry's career.
Encouraged by Sammy, LB worked day and night on a twenty-page short
story that was to be the basis for Jackson's comeback show. Entitled
'Cornpone & Honey', it was a comedy about a cynical cartoonist who gets
saddled with his neighbor's five-year old daughter, Honey, after her
parents die in a car crash. Jerry Katzman, one of the producers that
Jackson had shown the story to, liked it enough to set up a meeting
with Larry. Katzman had a new project in development, a film entitled
'The Rise And Fall Of A Rock And Roll Singer', with Jim Morrison
expected to star. To make sure the film appealed to youthful viewers,
he wanted the 23-year-old Larry to co-write the script with Arthur
Dreifuss, an old-time B movie maven who was also slated to direct.
Larry worked feverishly with Dreifuss to bring the Rock And Roll script
in on a deadline. But before production could begin, the studio had to
have a sit-down with Jim Morrison to discuss the project. All went well
until twenty minutes into the meeting when the rock and roll icon
abruptly nixed the entire deal. Why? Because he had a beard and was
adamant about not shaving it for the role. And at this time, never in
the history of motion pictures had there been a romantic hero with a
full, flowing face, neck, and chest-full of hair!
Although the project was cancelled, word around town regarding the
script was positive, and Larry's agent, Sylvia Hirsch, one of the grand
dames of the William Morris Agency, used it as a sample to get Larry
into the television writing business. Starting out slowly, as a
freelancer on the show Here Come the Brides, by the early '70s Larry
was one of the most in-demand writers in the medium. Soon he was
Producer of the NBC series Police Story, the first of a series of such
gigs that went on for over twenty years.
A strong believer in the social responsibility of not only the artist,
but of the media as a whole, Larry has for years crusaded to raise
standards so that productions will be meaningful as well as
entertaining. To that end, he has established TV Writer.Com
(www.tvwriter.com), the most highly regarded and visited television
writing site on the web, where he shares his experience and insight
into the business and artistry of TV writing today.
In the summer of 2002 Larry moved with his third wife, Gwen, and
teenage daughter, Amber, to St. Joe, Arkansas, to establish the Cloud
Creek Institute for the Arts (www.cloudcreek.org). A non-profit
charitable corporation dedicated to the advancement of the arts. The
mission of CCIA is to foster and advance creativity and interest in all
the arts by helping new artists develop their talents and skills, and
to create an environment of respect, appreciation, and support for the
arts in the community at large.
Larry is the winner of the Humanitas Certificate and the Population
Institute Award for his outstanding work on Medical Story, and was
nominated for both an Emmy and a Writers Guild Award for Best Dramatic
Writing on that groundbreaking series. Larry also won the Women in TV &
Film Award for the NBC television movie, Farrell for the People (1982)
(TV), as well as the Nosotros Award for his work on the critically
acclaimed, multi-award winning drama, "Police Story" (1973).
He has written two e-books, nine novels, and six books of poetry.
Nonfiction books include 'Television Writing From The Inside Out: Your
Channel To Success' and 'Turning Points in Television. Currently (as of
July 2007), Larry is a regular columnist for 'Movie Scope' magazine,
and writes 'Live! From Paradise!' a syndicated newspaper column and
blog about the life of a city writer who moves to the
country.
