"Monster" is John Gregory Dunne's mordantly funny account of life on the
Hollywood food chain. Dunne and his wife, Joan Didion, have been working
in the movies for over twenty-five years, and have written, rewritten,
brainstormed, and developed two dozen scripts, seven of which have been
produced. Monster is the candid chronicle of how one of those scripts
finally got made into "Up Close & Personal," starring Robert Redford and
Michelle Pfeiffer. The "Up Close" screenplay started out as the story of
Jessica Savitch, the television news anchorwoman whose history included
drugs, opportunistic sex, and an early, violent death. Over the years it
was refined into a story that would "make the audience walk out feeling
uplifted, good about something, and good about themselves, " as one
executive put it in an early script meeting. The tale of how this
happened is a hilarious saga that Dunne relates with a wicked eye and
perfect pitch for the absurdities and savage infighting of the film
industry.