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Introduction
English). No where to go save law school. So I girded myself for the challenge. At least I would someday make money.
And in my senior year, with required courses laboriously shoveled away, I discovered the motion-picture department at UCLA. And screenwriting. I found they would give me credit for—oh glory of glories!—watching movies! And for writing, for writing any old yam that came into my head.
School changed from drudgery to pleasure. I told stories and watched them, and that was all that was required of me. And I learned the joy of those whose lives were concerned primarily with artistic creation, saw the naked exuberance of a young guest-instructor displayed while he taught a seminar in the films of director Howard Hawks. Peter Bogdanovich wasn’t an especially fine instructor, but he was enthusiastic. His enthusiasm has done him right well since he taught that class.
He gave me a B, but wrote on my final exam, “You have good instincts … you should continue.”
But law school still beckoned. Until a miracle happened. Despite unspectacular grades, perhaps because of a good Graduate Entrance Exam score, possibly due to the odd letter I wrote in which I explained I wished first of all to be the world’s greatest gigolo and, second, to write, I was accepted into the graduate writing program.
My parents wailed silently, stoically, and finally reconciled themselves to the idea of their young Perry Mason blowing a fat raspberry at the whole legal profession. I turned down USC Law School and entered the wacky world of graduate film at UCLA. I started at the unprodigal age of twenty-two to write, seriously, for the first tune.