Donald Stewart | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Donald E. Stewart in 1997 | |
| Born | (1930-01-24)January 24, 1930 |
| Died | April 28, 1999(1999-04-28) (aged 69) Los Angeles,California, United States |
| Resting place | Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery |
| Occupation | Screenwriter |
Donald E. Stewart (24 January 1930 – 28 April 1999) was an Americanscreenwriter, best known for his screenplay forMissing, which won theAcademy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, theWriters Guild of America Award, theLondon Film Critics' Circle award,[1] a Christopher Award, (www.christophers.org) and theBAFTA Award for Best Screenplay, all shared with the film's director,Costa-Gavras.
Born inDetroit,Michigan, he had an early passion for cars.[2] He began his writing career as a journalist forThe Detroit Times.[2] In his 20s, he founded and co-publishedCompetition Press, a weekly magazine devoted to car-racing that eventually becameAutoweek; he also briefly editedMotor Life magazine. In 1960 he left reporting and moved to New York for the advertising industry, becoming copywriter and creative executive for a series of agencies such as J. Walter Thompson, Young & Rubicam and BBDO. Not surprisingly, he specialized in advertising copy for the motor trade, an area of booming competition in the car-obsessed economy of 1960s America. He became creative director of the Fletcher-Richards Agency and an expert on all things automotive.
He moved toHollywood in his 40s to try his hand at screenwriting. His first film wasRoger Corman'sJackson County Jail.
In his Oscar acceptance speech forMissing, Stewart thanked not only the film's director ("my co-writer and friend") but alsoCharles Horman, the American journalist whose disappearance was the centerpiece of the film.[3] When interviewed about what impact the foreign policy issues raised byMissing had on audiences, Stewart commented: "Movies have a tendency to really heat up the emotions."[4] The screenplay forMissing is used in film schools for instruction in structure and development.[2]
He wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for theTom Clancy trilogy ofJack Ryan films:The Hunt for Red October,Patriot Games, andClear and Present Danger.[5]
Stewart died in his apartment at the Sierra Towers inLos Angeles ofcancer in 1999 at age 69. He had three children, Scott Stewart (now deceased), Sarah Cassleman, and Peter Stewart. He was separated from his fifth wife at the time of his death.[6]
His last film before his death wasDead Silence, aTV-movie starringJames Garner.Hostiles, released in December 2017, was based on a manuscript written by Stewart in the 1980s and brought to life by director and co-writerScott Cooper.
