Peter Stone
Peter Stone ( born February 27, 1930 in Los Angeles, California, † 26 April 2003 in New York City, New York) was an American screenwriter.
Life
Stone was born in Los Angeles, the son of film producer and screenwriters John Stone. He finished his studies in acting at Yale University in 1953 with the master's degree. He first worked as a journalist and news anchor for CBS Radio and CBS Television. From 1956 he worked as a screenwriter. In 1961 he wrote two episodes of the television series The Asphalt Jungle and three episodes of Preston & Preston; for one of these episodes, he was awarded the 1962 Emmy. He also wrote the book to the Broadway production Kean, which was performed from November 1961 to January 1962 and was well received by critics. Greater success of the piece with the audience, however, did.
In 1963 he wrote his first feature film script; Charade was filmed by Stanley Donen with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn and became a great success. For his book, he received the Edgar Allan Poe Award and was nominated for the WGA Award. For his second screenplay, the film comedy The great wolf calls by Ralph Nelson with Cary Grant and Leslie Caron in the leading roles, 1965 he was awarded an Oscar. More books he wrote mid-1960s for the thriller The 27th floor and Arabesque, each with Gregory Peck in the lead role. In the meantime he had written with Skyscraper another Broadway production, which was performed from 1965 to 1966. Although he was nominated for his book for the Tony Award, was again summoned him no great commercial success. It was not until his third production, 1776, he managed a theater success, which is also celebrating his first Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award which he won.
From 1969 he concentrated on adaptations. He edited the musical Sweet Charity, which an adaptation of Fellini's Nights of Cabiria was himself, in a television production with Shirley MacLaine in the lead role. His fourth Broadway musical was an adaptation of Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, The Musical Woman of the Year based on The Woman of the talks and also the screenplay for The Gourmet orgy was based on a novel.
In the 1980s and 1990s, he wrote mainly for Broadway and only sporadically in film and television. One of his last films was Just Cause with Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburne in the lead roles. 2002 was developed with The Truth About Charlie, a remake of Charade, but he chose for his screenplay participation a pseudonym. Overall, Stone was nominated six times for the Tony Award three times and he got it, among other things, for the musical Titanic.
Stone was 1981-1999 President of the Dramatists Guild of America. He was married in 1961, the couple had no children.