Taglines: Anyone can be a father. But not every father deserves a standing ovation.
Author! Author! movie storyline. Playwright Ivan Travalian (Al Pacino) has a new Broadway play (English with Tears) in rehearsal and the backers want rewrites. His wife, Gloria (Tuesday Weld), moves out, leaving him with custody of their five children: four from her previous marriages and his own son. His two stepdaughters and his stepson Spike return to their respective fathers but two of the boys, his biological son Igor and his stepson Geraldo, remain with Ivan.
The producer of the theater production lies to investors, claiming that popular film actress Alice Detroit (Dyan Cannon) has already signed on to play the lead in the play. Ivan has no choice but to convince her to perform in the play over a dinner where she confesses that she is a big fan of his and would love to perform in his new play. She spends more and more time with him and then moves in with him and the remaining two children. One night Ivan explains to her that he was an abandoned baby who was adopted by a family with the Armenian name “Travalian”. Alice becomes depressed because she misses her former social life so Ivan eventually asks her to move out.
His two stepdaughters run away from their father’s home to live with Ivan and the police come to take them back, but Ivan and the children stage a standoff on the roof of their building, eventually convincing the police and their father to let the girls stay. Spike also returns to the house, meaning that all of the children will be living with Ivan again.
Ivan decides that his wife should return as well so he takes a taxi to Gloucester, Massachusetts, to retrieve her. He finds her painting on a snowy dock with her new boyfriend, where she resists his efforts to force her to return for the good of the children. Recognizing her selfishness, Ivan eventually gives up and tells her to stay in Gloucester. He returns to New York City and promises his stepchildren that they can remain with him. They attend the opening night of the play and film ends with them reading a positive review of the play in The New York Times.
Author! Author! is a 1982 American comedy-drama film directed by Arthur Hiller, written by Israel Horovitz, and starring Al Pacino, Dyan Cannon and Tuesday Weld. The film, which is loosely autobiographical, concerns a Broadway playwright who strives to solve his family and relationship troubles while trying to get a new play into production.
Screenwriter Israel Horovitz first worked with Al Pacino in 1968, when Pacino starred in his play The Indian Wants the Bronx, for which they both received Obie Awards. They remained friends over the years and jumped at the chance to work again on Author! Author!
The film was based on Horovitz’s own personal experiences as a divorced father responsible for looking after two of his three children. “I felt there was a lot of room to explore the ease with which people get married in this country, the way kids come along in huge bunches and the irresponsibility of parents in taking care of those children.” He also talked to his three children for inspiration. He said, “The film had to be written in a comic mode, because otherwise it’s too painful to deal with.”
Horovitz made the protagonist Armenian American to give him a strong ethnic identity parallel to his own Jewish background. The film was in development at United Artists but was eventually made by 20th Century Fox with director Arthur Hiller attached. Hiller was drawn to the project because it was about an extended family and that it showed “that love is what makes a family strong, not necessarily who’s the natural parent.”
Author! Author! (1982)
Directed by: Arthur Hiller
Starring: Al Pacino, Dyan Cannon, Tuesday Weld, Alan King, Bob Dishy, Bob Elliott, Ray Goulding, Eric Gurry, Elva Leff, B. J. Barie, Ari Meyers, Benjamin H. Carlin, Rachael Horovitz
Screenplay by: Israel Horovitz
Production Design by: Gene Rudolf
Cinematography by: Victor J. Kemper
Film Editing by: William Reynolds
Costume Design by: Gloria Gresham
Set Decoration by: Alan Hicks, Harold McConnell Jr.
Music by: Dave Grusin
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: June 18, 1982
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