Tell the Story: A Hollywood Odyssey
As a highly paid screenwriter, Terrell Tannen lived the classic Hollywood lifestyle: the Porsche, oversized house, dinners, and parties. By most measures, he could be called wildly successful. Yet . . . script after script, written for the bona fide elites of the movie business, floundered for all the usual and unusual Hollywood reasons.
Tell the Story: A Hollywood Odyssey offers a window into what it feels like to constantly flirt with fame. At times resembling a darkly comic film, it’s a very American tale, illustrative of the driving forces of hope and ambition in a place—Hollywood—where these desires burn like an inextinguishable neon sign, imploring and taunting at the same time. It also reminds us that, for all our dreams and ambitions, life has a way of writing its own script.
Tell the Story is the story behind the story on screen, how it happens—and more often does not. A story for cinephiles, film enthusiasts, aspiring artists, romantics, wishers, dreamers . . . and all of us who just love an original tale.
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Terrell Tannen has written, directed, and produced feature films, television, documentaries, and shorts for nearly fifty years. His credits include The Boogey Man, A Minor Miracle, Shadows in the Storm, Gospel Hill, Honor Bound, and dozens of commissioned screenwriting assignments around the world. His commentaries, stories, and essays have appeared in Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Washington Post, and The Lancet. His first memoir, When Blood Is Gone, was published in 2013. An excerpt, Finding John Huston, appeared in The New Yorker Culture Desk. Excerpts from Tell the Story: A Hollywood Odyssey have appeared in The Wall Street Journal and Literary Hub.