John Blumenthal | |
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Born | 1949 (age 74–75) Middletown, Orange County, New York, U.S. |
Occupation | Writer |
Alma mater | Tufts University |
Period | 1984–present |
Genre | Fiction, nonfiction, screenwriting |
John Blumenthal (born 1949) is an American novelist and screenwriter, known for co-writing the screenplays for the films Short Time and Blue Streak.
Blumenthal was born in Middletown, New York. [1] He attended Tufts University, graduating in 1971. [1] [2]
Blumenthal was hired as a fact-checker at Esquire magazine in the early 1970s, when he has 24. [3] His first editorial job, he served under the editor Harold Hayes. [3] In 1973, Nora Ephron, at the time an Esquire columnist, helped Blumenthal get a job at Playboy as an editor and writer. [3] In addition to Esquire [1] and Playboy, [4] Blumenthal has also written for Salon. [3]
Several of Blumenthal's books have been loosely based on his experiences in Hollywood, including the 1984 parody The Official Hollywood Handbook. [5] Also in 1984, Blumenthal and his friend and fellow Playboy editor Barry Golson wrote a period-piece romance novella spoof called Love's Reckless Rash, published by St. Martin's Press under the pen name Rosemary Cartwheel. In 2013, the duo wrote Passing Wind of Love, a novel-length expansion of Love's Reckless Rash.[ citation needed]
Blumenthal wrote a pair of detective novel spoofs published by Simon & Schuster in 1985, both featuring private detective Mac Slade and set in modern-day Manhattan: The Tinseltown Murders and The Case of the Hardboiled Dicks. [6]
Blumenthal's 1988 nonfiction book Hollywood High is a history of the Los Angeles public high school founded in 1903 that was attended by numerous celebrities, including Lana Turner, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, John Ritter and Carol Burnett. [7]
In 1999, Blumenthal returned to literature with the comic novel What's Wrong With Dorfman? [1] His agent sent it to about 20 publishers; it was rejected by all of them, and in 2000 Blumenthal decided to self-publish. In 2002 St. Martin's Press bought the book, republishing it the following year. [1] The novel is about the midlife crisis of Hollywood screenwriter and hypochondriac Martin Dorfman, as he faces up to painful childhood memories and deals with a variety of physical ailments and professional setbacks. [8] [9] The Wall Street Journal called it "a funny and surprisingly moving story written at the intersection of shtick and angst", [8] and Publishers Weekly described it as "frequently hilarious and unexpectedly touching." [5] It was named one of January Magazine's favorite books of the year for 2000. [10]
Blumenthal's 2004 comic novel Millard Fillmore, Mon Amour was also published by St. Martin's. The book's central character, Plato G. Fussell, obsesses over writing a 10-volume definitive biography of Millard Fillmore, the 13th President of the United States. [11] Fussell is a death-obsessed dysfunctional divorced wealthy loner who engages in a relationship with his psychoanalyst's wife after his first wife leaves him. [9] [12]
His 2011 novel Three and a Half Virgins is also about a man whose wife leaves him: newly single Jimmy Hendricks is a lonely, middle-aged man revisiting his past by looking up his old girlfriends. [13]
Blumenthal co-wrote the 1990 action comedy Short Time, directed by Gregg Champion and starring Dabney Coleman and Teri Garr, [14] [15] and the 1999 action comedy film Blue Streak, directed by Les Mayfield and starring Martin Lawrence. [16] [17] Blue Streak brought in over $117 million at the box office worldwide. [18]
Blumenthal is married with two daughters. [19]