These three authors did most of their writing for big and little screens.

Pamela Chais is a screenwriter who wrote two novels set in Hollywood.

She was born in Los Angeles in 1930; her father, F. Hugh Chais, was also a writer. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles. She has worked in public relations and written for many television series. Her earliest credit is Adam’s Rib in 1973; she also wrote for the long-running Rhoda. She has also written film scripts, her most recent credit being Getting Hal in 2003. She and her family have also been active in philanthropy for Jewish causes and with the Writers Guild of America.

Novels

Split Ends Lippincott 1977 * Bantam pb1978*  “This is a modern Valentine of a book, an up to the minute love story with a happy ending.” –Library Journal.

Final Cut Simon & Schuster 1981* “[O]ffbeat suspense novel….As a Hollywood story it is pleasant enough, but the message is familiar. The place is rotten through and through, and agents are from the bottom of the pond.” –New York Times

Main sources: Contemporary Authors, imdb.com

Bob Randall’s (1938-1995) first novel, The Fan,  was well-received and became a widely-seen movie, providing a bridge to Hollywood for the author. He was a versatile writer who had one hit in each of three media: stage, page, and television, before his regrettably early death from AIDS.

Born Stanley B. Goldstein in New York, he attended the celebrated High School of Music and Art, then got his B.A. from New York University. He spent four years as an actor and 10 years as an advertising man. In 1972, his comedy “6 Rms Riv Vu” had a successful run on Broadway. He also wrote the Doug Henning vehicle, “The Magic Show.”

Randall wrote two subsequent suspense novels, but The Fan had become a popular movie starring Lauren Bacall, and his interests were shifting. He had told LJ in 1977, “I enjoy firsts enormously….When I start a project in a new field I’m 17 again and desperate to prove myself.”  He did most of his writing for the movies and television. Most notably, he was head writer and producer of the long-running situation comedy Kate and Allie.  

Novels

The Fan   Random House 1977 *  Warner 1981* “Theatrical, modish, glossy, glamourous and fun, with a splendid undercurrent of terror.”  Library Journal

The Next  Warner1981*

The Calling  Simon & Schuster, 1981 * Jove 1983 *“Randall…has a small collection of interesting characters, some pert dialogue, and a steadily building tension that never becomes implausible.” –Library Journal

 none from St. Louis County Library

Main source: New York Times obit by William Grimes, 2/14/95

Joyce Rebeta-Burditt’s first novel was a hit and became a TV movie starring Natalie Wood. It was the first of an unbroken string of TV credits, continuing to the present.  But she has written only two other novels. It seems that she turns to the novel form when she wants to use autobiographical material.

She was head of comedy development for NBC and worked as producer and/or writer for several long-running series. In the ‘90s, she created the Dick Van Dyke crime series Prescription Murder. More recently, she has written the Mystery Woman series of TV movies for the Hallmark channel. 

Her first novel, The Cracker Factory, was, she told LJ, about her ”four and a half months in a Cleveland psychiatric ward” recovering from alcoholism. It was a best seller and adapted for television. Three years later, she wrote Triplets, a family novel, which was also well-received. Fifteen years passed before she returned to the novel, with the comedy-mystery Buck Naked. It was about a television star whose folksy image belied his scandalous private life. Reviewers speculated about whether it was based on her experiences as a writer for Matlock, the ‘80s detective show starring Andy Griffith.

Novels

The Cracker Factory * Macmillan 1977 Bantam 1978, 1983

Triplets * # Delacorte 1981  “It seems to me that a new style of popular art has appeared to instruct us, exemplified in the dramatic media by television’s superb ‘Hill Street Blues’ and in fiction by Joyce Rebeta-Burditt’s second novel, Triplets.”—New York Times

Buck Naked # Ballantine 1996

*amazon   #slcpl

Main source: imdb.com