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Rewrite Man: The Life and Career of Screenwriter Warren Skaaren
In Rewrite Man , Alison Macor tells an engrossing story about the challenges faced by a top screenwriter at the crossroads of mixed and conflicting agendas in Hollywood. Whether writing love scenes for Tom Cruise on the set of Top Gun , running lines with Michael Keaton on Beetlejuice , or crafting Nietzschean dialogue for Jack Nicholson on Batman , Warren Skaaren collaborated with many of New Hollywood’s most powerful stars, producers, and directors. By the time of his premature death in 1990, Skaaren was one of Hollywood’s highest-paid writers, although he rarely left Austin, where he lived and worked. Yet he had to battle for shared screenwriting credit on these films, and his struggles yield a new understanding of the secretive screen credit arbitration process—a process that has only become more intense, more litigious, and more public for screenwriters and their union, the Writers Guild of America, since Skaaren’s time. His story, told through a wealth of archival material, illuminates crucial issues of film authorship that have seldom been explored.
264 pages, Hardcover
Published May 30, 2017
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About the author
Alison Macor
3 books5 followersA former film critic, Alison Macor holds a PhD in film history and taught for more than 20 years at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas State University, Austin Community College and the Austin Museum of Art.
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February 26, 2026
I first met Warren at Rice University while visiting my parents in Houston in 1975. He called my folks’ house to say he had started the Texas Film Commission while working for Governor Preston Smith in Austin and thought we should meet. Warren was still in his twenties; clean shaven (the mustache came later), soft spoken, not at all pushy or aggressive, but had eyes that sparkled with intelligence. I liked him a lot, and put him in touch with Ted Flicker, who I was working for at the time on a picture set in Texas. Warren found some money for us.
I met his wife only once, when they were staying at Ted’s on a visit to L.A. Helen was strikingly beautiful but said hardly a word other than a whispered “hullo”. They were to me a dazzling young couple, almost reminiscent of young Scott and Zelda. Warren wanted me to work on a screenplay with him, but he was pursuing low budget projects in Austin while I was getting work in L.A., so that wasn’t practical and anyway my agent wouldn’t hear of it.
Because we had lost touch for almost a decade, I was as blindsided as the rest of the town when Warren in 1985 -- seemingly out of nowhere -- broke big in Hollywood. Here was a low budget Austin producer with no major feature or prime time writing credits, and a sample script that was probably a shared credit, who overnight became writer and friend to Tom Cruise, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, Sherry Lansing, Tim Burton, Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas, Jane Fonda, and other A-listers.
Most WGA members (who generally know each other) had never met or heard of him. Some resented script doctors because, of course, they are mostly hired to fix green-lit scripts and have incentive to mess with them more than necessary to earn screen credit. Yet within three years Warren’s asking price rose to one million dollars merely to become involved. “If you want Warren, you pay Warren’s price,” Don Simpson remarked. Tom Cruise phoned often, wanting him on all his projects. Sherry Lansing tried to steal him from the competition by offering a title-to-be-determined executive position on the Paramount lot, which Skaaren declined only because he insisted on living and working out of Austin. The possibilities before him were seemingly unlimited at the time of his death at age 44 in December of 1990.
Though Skaaren’s time was brief and few remember him today, his career is surely one of the more bizarre episodes of Hollywood screenwriting history. The question most WGA members will want answered is -- how in the world did he do it?
Austin film historian Alison Macor discovered 64 boxes of Warren’s papers at UT’s Harry Ransom Center. Skaaren, it turns out, kept everything; tapes and transcripts of meetings, letters, a detailed personal journal, and all the drafts of his work. Quotes from his journal are especially insightful, as when he second guesses his own conduct at meetings, and tries to nail what made each of the other participants tick. Macor gives an unusually frank and intimate look at Warren’s participation in blockbusters like Top Gun, Beetlejuice, Beverly Hills Cop II, and Tim Burton’s Batman.
While her book may not be much help to those seeking to become better screenwriters, it is a trove of insights and secrets essential to an effective screenwriting career. The ability to deliver work in a timely fashion is critical in these pages (Skaaren always met and usually beat his deadlines). Equally vital are the social skills (which many writers tend to lack by nature) that allow one to interact comfortably with artists and executives of various temperaments, and even forge personal relationships with them. Perhaps most impressive to me was Skaaren’s ability to persist in the face of hopeless adversity, illustrated here by the series of fantastic disasters he survived as producer of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Some quick glimpses inside the cover …
Mike Simpson was an Austin friend who became a William Morris agent, and offered to use Warren’s spec script to get him some rewrite money. Top Gun (original screenplay by Jim Cash and Jack Eps, Jr.) was in panic mode on the Paramount lot because principle photography was set to start in five weeks and Tom Cruise was threatening to walk:
Director Tony Scott saw Top Gun as an “important” dark film about jacked up hot shot pilots. Cruise, coming off Risky Business, felt his character too unsympathetic, but their current rewrite man was unable to merge the needs of star and director. Producers Simpson and Bruckheimer, and Paramount exec Sherry Lansing, appear to have wanted only a summer blockbuster entertainment.
It seems doubtful Skaaren would have gotten in to see Simpson/ Bruckheimer if the situation had not been so desperate. But he was a good listener and asked for ten days to deliver a draft of his take. They said yes, and he delivered it in five. It didn’t fix their problems, but broke the log jam between the various parties by distracting them from the script on which they disagreed. When Skaaren was summoned to a general meeting, he took careful note of “what” changes each participant sought, but also tried to identify specifically “why” they wanted them. Cruise, for example, was concerned that his character was unsympathetic, while Tony Scott wanted a dark picture. Skaaren felt at least one participant, a producer too important to ignore, merely wanted to “make a contribution” and sensed wiggle room there. After the meeting in which he mostly listened, he communicated by phone with the participants separately, and made each feel his concerns were being addressed.
For Cruise, he conjured up the famous bar scene in which Maverick and Goose sing “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” after Kelly McGillis refuses his advances. McGillis he changed from a fitness trainer to an astrophysicist to make the relationship between her and Maverack look less shallow. When Cruise first sleeps with her and then sneaks out, a tweak suggested to Skaaren by Cruise has Maverick linger a moment at the door to watch her sleep, to convey that he is not callous.
But Macor suggests Skaaren’s real contribution went beyond mere fixes. Paramount executives insisted that he be present at all meetings, readings, rehearsals, and throughout the shoot. A major feature production is a collaboration of powerful stars, directors, and producers who can have creative differences. Skaaren, it seems, had the knack to defuse confrontations and keep things moving by offering a sympathetic ear and quick compromise solutions. He may have been somewhat like Dumbo’s feather -- a reassuring presence to all that everything was going to be all right. When he lost screen credit on the picture in a WGA arbitration, Paramount wanted to keep him happy; he was given an Associate Producer credit with points that, Macor says, were worth more than those of Cash and Eps.
Subsequently he saved young Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice on which he earned shared credit. His shared credit on Beverly Hills Cop II was headline news in the trades when it triggered a lawsuit by a second writer that threatened the Guild arbitration system in demanding that names of anonymous arbiters be made public. (Macor is quite savvy on the arcane subject of WGA credit arbitrations.) Among Batman’s problems was its length, which he cut to 110 pages by eliminating Robin. But Jack Nicolson hated the Joker’s lines and threatened to walk. Warren hung with him, learned he admired Nietzsche, and came up with some humorous lines reminiscent of the philosopher that Nicholson loved and nailed with relish.
Macor invites screenwriters to ask how many would turn in a draft with a cover letter to studio executives like this one from Skaaren for Batman:
“Let’s all read this script with new eyes. I urge you to focus on the creative issues now, discuss them with Tim and based on those discussions, I’ll do another draft next week which incorporates the results of those creative discussions. Then we’ll start rehearsals on Oct. 3 with a mature script which is the right length and offers a good approximation of our creative goals, too.”
* *
Helen refused to meet Macor or cooperate with her for this book in any way. But Macor writes that she was opposed to all forms of Western medicine; Helen and Warren followed a strict macrobiotic diet (a macrobiotic institute in Austin still bears his name), and depended on meditation and other eastern practices for health.
When Warren discovered a mole growing on his chest in 1987, he depended on macrobiotics to cure it until a friend noticed the grotesque lesion was bleeding though his button down shirt. The friend insisted on taking him to his doctor, who took one look and scheduled an emergency operation. Skaaren kept the health scare secret, and used the fortuitous Writers Guild strike of 1988 as pretext for inactivity during recovery. Though he seemed fine afterword, doctors warned such an advanced melanoma had certainly metastasized and urged follow-up radiation and chemotherapy. But a Canadian astrologer assured in him in a phone consultation the operation had "removed 94% of the cancer” and dietary and spiritual practices would eliminate the rest.
Warren resumed work without incident for a while until he began experiencing back pain in 1989. At first he turned to acupuncture and meditation (the belief is that if you heal the mind, the body will heal itself), but eventually hired a physical therapist. During this period Skaaren’s personal assistant noticed his first break with eastern medicine; pain medications were forbidden, but he began having her sneak Advil into the house. When his physical therapist saw no improvement she insisted on an MRI. This revealed inoperable advanced bone cancer spreading to his hips.
He flew in prominent spiritualist healers from around the world who assured that the power to cure was within him and he need only access it. Doctors complained they were unable to get to him because “the guy’s surrounded himself with crazy people”. Eventually the pain became so excruciating that Warren had a personal friend sneak him to a hospital and they returned with a morphine drip. He had never taken drugs before but confessed “morphine is my new best friend.” Toward the end, Macor writes, he began to curse and swear at any mention of Helen (who had moved out) for having introduced him to non-traditional healing.
Warren kept his condition secret for fear of an impact on his career. Not even his friend and agent Mike Simpson was told. But work from the usually reliable Skaaren stopped coming. His personal assistant told callers he was on an extended vacation but would return in a few months. Skaaren disappeared from Hollywood as abruptly as he had arrived. Two weeks before his death, his assistant felt Mike Simpson at least was entitled to know. She told Simpson, “I’m going to make him call you, but don’t pay attention to anything he says. What I’m telling you is the truth.” Warren’s call was Simpson’s last conversation with his client.
I met his wife only once, when they were staying at Ted’s on a visit to L.A. Helen was strikingly beautiful but said hardly a word other than a whispered “hullo”. They were to me a dazzling young couple, almost reminiscent of young Scott and Zelda. Warren wanted me to work on a screenplay with him, but he was pursuing low budget projects in Austin while I was getting work in L.A., so that wasn’t practical and anyway my agent wouldn’t hear of it.
Because we had lost touch for almost a decade, I was as blindsided as the rest of the town when Warren in 1985 -- seemingly out of nowhere -- broke big in Hollywood. Here was a low budget Austin producer with no major feature or prime time writing credits, and a sample script that was probably a shared credit, who overnight became writer and friend to Tom Cruise, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, Sherry Lansing, Tim Burton, Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas, Jane Fonda, and other A-listers.
Most WGA members (who generally know each other) had never met or heard of him. Some resented script doctors because, of course, they are mostly hired to fix green-lit scripts and have incentive to mess with them more than necessary to earn screen credit. Yet within three years Warren’s asking price rose to one million dollars merely to become involved. “If you want Warren, you pay Warren’s price,” Don Simpson remarked. Tom Cruise phoned often, wanting him on all his projects. Sherry Lansing tried to steal him from the competition by offering a title-to-be-determined executive position on the Paramount lot, which Skaaren declined only because he insisted on living and working out of Austin. The possibilities before him were seemingly unlimited at the time of his death at age 44 in December of 1990.
Though Skaaren’s time was brief and few remember him today, his career is surely one of the more bizarre episodes of Hollywood screenwriting history. The question most WGA members will want answered is -- how in the world did he do it?
Austin film historian Alison Macor discovered 64 boxes of Warren’s papers at UT’s Harry Ransom Center. Skaaren, it turns out, kept everything; tapes and transcripts of meetings, letters, a detailed personal journal, and all the drafts of his work. Quotes from his journal are especially insightful, as when he second guesses his own conduct at meetings, and tries to nail what made each of the other participants tick. Macor gives an unusually frank and intimate look at Warren’s participation in blockbusters like Top Gun, Beetlejuice, Beverly Hills Cop II, and Tim Burton’s Batman.
While her book may not be much help to those seeking to become better screenwriters, it is a trove of insights and secrets essential to an effective screenwriting career. The ability to deliver work in a timely fashion is critical in these pages (Skaaren always met and usually beat his deadlines). Equally vital are the social skills (which many writers tend to lack by nature) that allow one to interact comfortably with artists and executives of various temperaments, and even forge personal relationships with them. Perhaps most impressive to me was Skaaren’s ability to persist in the face of hopeless adversity, illustrated here by the series of fantastic disasters he survived as producer of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Some quick glimpses inside the cover …
Mike Simpson was an Austin friend who became a William Morris agent, and offered to use Warren’s spec script to get him some rewrite money. Top Gun (original screenplay by Jim Cash and Jack Eps, Jr.) was in panic mode on the Paramount lot because principle photography was set to start in five weeks and Tom Cruise was threatening to walk:
Director Tony Scott saw Top Gun as an “important” dark film about jacked up hot shot pilots. Cruise, coming off Risky Business, felt his character too unsympathetic, but their current rewrite man was unable to merge the needs of star and director. Producers Simpson and Bruckheimer, and Paramount exec Sherry Lansing, appear to have wanted only a summer blockbuster entertainment.
It seems doubtful Skaaren would have gotten in to see Simpson/ Bruckheimer if the situation had not been so desperate. But he was a good listener and asked for ten days to deliver a draft of his take. They said yes, and he delivered it in five. It didn’t fix their problems, but broke the log jam between the various parties by distracting them from the script on which they disagreed. When Skaaren was summoned to a general meeting, he took careful note of “what” changes each participant sought, but also tried to identify specifically “why” they wanted them. Cruise, for example, was concerned that his character was unsympathetic, while Tony Scott wanted a dark picture. Skaaren felt at least one participant, a producer too important to ignore, merely wanted to “make a contribution” and sensed wiggle room there. After the meeting in which he mostly listened, he communicated by phone with the participants separately, and made each feel his concerns were being addressed.
For Cruise, he conjured up the famous bar scene in which Maverick and Goose sing “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling” after Kelly McGillis refuses his advances. McGillis he changed from a fitness trainer to an astrophysicist to make the relationship between her and Maverack look less shallow. When Cruise first sleeps with her and then sneaks out, a tweak suggested to Skaaren by Cruise has Maverick linger a moment at the door to watch her sleep, to convey that he is not callous.
But Macor suggests Skaaren’s real contribution went beyond mere fixes. Paramount executives insisted that he be present at all meetings, readings, rehearsals, and throughout the shoot. A major feature production is a collaboration of powerful stars, directors, and producers who can have creative differences. Skaaren, it seems, had the knack to defuse confrontations and keep things moving by offering a sympathetic ear and quick compromise solutions. He may have been somewhat like Dumbo’s feather -- a reassuring presence to all that everything was going to be all right. When he lost screen credit on the picture in a WGA arbitration, Paramount wanted to keep him happy; he was given an Associate Producer credit with points that, Macor says, were worth more than those of Cash and Eps.
Subsequently he saved young Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice on which he earned shared credit. His shared credit on Beverly Hills Cop II was headline news in the trades when it triggered a lawsuit by a second writer that threatened the Guild arbitration system in demanding that names of anonymous arbiters be made public. (Macor is quite savvy on the arcane subject of WGA credit arbitrations.) Among Batman’s problems was its length, which he cut to 110 pages by eliminating Robin. But Jack Nicolson hated the Joker’s lines and threatened to walk. Warren hung with him, learned he admired Nietzsche, and came up with some humorous lines reminiscent of the philosopher that Nicholson loved and nailed with relish.
Macor invites screenwriters to ask how many would turn in a draft with a cover letter to studio executives like this one from Skaaren for Batman:
“Let’s all read this script with new eyes. I urge you to focus on the creative issues now, discuss them with Tim and based on those discussions, I’ll do another draft next week which incorporates the results of those creative discussions. Then we’ll start rehearsals on Oct. 3 with a mature script which is the right length and offers a good approximation of our creative goals, too.”
* *
Helen refused to meet Macor or cooperate with her for this book in any way. But Macor writes that she was opposed to all forms of Western medicine; Helen and Warren followed a strict macrobiotic diet (a macrobiotic institute in Austin still bears his name), and depended on meditation and other eastern practices for health.
When Warren discovered a mole growing on his chest in 1987, he depended on macrobiotics to cure it until a friend noticed the grotesque lesion was bleeding though his button down shirt. The friend insisted on taking him to his doctor, who took one look and scheduled an emergency operation. Skaaren kept the health scare secret, and used the fortuitous Writers Guild strike of 1988 as pretext for inactivity during recovery. Though he seemed fine afterword, doctors warned such an advanced melanoma had certainly metastasized and urged follow-up radiation and chemotherapy. But a Canadian astrologer assured in him in a phone consultation the operation had "removed 94% of the cancer” and dietary and spiritual practices would eliminate the rest.
Warren resumed work without incident for a while until he began experiencing back pain in 1989. At first he turned to acupuncture and meditation (the belief is that if you heal the mind, the body will heal itself), but eventually hired a physical therapist. During this period Skaaren’s personal assistant noticed his first break with eastern medicine; pain medications were forbidden, but he began having her sneak Advil into the house. When his physical therapist saw no improvement she insisted on an MRI. This revealed inoperable advanced bone cancer spreading to his hips.
He flew in prominent spiritualist healers from around the world who assured that the power to cure was within him and he need only access it. Doctors complained they were unable to get to him because “the guy’s surrounded himself with crazy people”. Eventually the pain became so excruciating that Warren had a personal friend sneak him to a hospital and they returned with a morphine drip. He had never taken drugs before but confessed “morphine is my new best friend.” Toward the end, Macor writes, he began to curse and swear at any mention of Helen (who had moved out) for having introduced him to non-traditional healing.
Warren kept his condition secret for fear of an impact on his career. Not even his friend and agent Mike Simpson was told. But work from the usually reliable Skaaren stopped coming. His personal assistant told callers he was on an extended vacation but would return in a few months. Skaaren disappeared from Hollywood as abruptly as he had arrived. Two weeks before his death, his assistant felt Mike Simpson at least was entitled to know. She told Simpson, “I’m going to make him call you, but don’t pay attention to anything he says. What I’m telling you is the truth.” Warren’s call was Simpson’s last conversation with his client.
January 26, 2018
At first I enjoyed the juxtaposition of an Austin man dealing with the Hollywood film business and trying hold onto himself and his life in Austin. As the projects accrue the tension builds between Skaaren and the directors, fellow writers and producers he has dazzled with his talent, but the narrative takes on a deeper meaning of what it means to dedicate one’s life to his work and loved ones. It’s an incredibly moving book.
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