David Stenn is an American television writer-producer, biographer, and film preservationist. His television credits range fromHill Street Blues toBoardwalk Empire. He is known for his biographies of Hollywood starsClara Bow andJean Harlow.
Stenn was born inChicago, Illinois and graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree fromYale University. His television career began one year later, when he became the youngest writer of the NBC seriesHill Street Blues. He subsequently served as a writer and story editor for the anthology seriesAlfred Hitchcock Presents (1985–86). His teleplay for the made-for-TV movieShe Was Marked for Murder (1988) earned him anEdgar Award nomination from theMystery Writers of America. Stenn also wrote the Universal feature filmCool as Ice (1991).
Subsequent television series credits include the Fox Network's21 Jump Street (writer-producer) andBeverly Hills 90210 (writer-supervising producer and creator of the character Dylan McKay, portrayed byLuke Perry); the NBC miniseriesThe Secrets of Lake Success (writer-executive producer); the CBS seriesCentral Park West (writer-co-executive producer); Showtime'sThe L Word (writer-co-executive producer), and theHBO period gangster dramaBoardwalk Empire (writer-supervising producer, consultant).
Concurrently with his early television career, Stenn wrote the biographiesClara Bow: Runnin’ Wild (1988) andBombshell: The Life and Death of Jean Harlow (1993), both edited byJacqueline Onassis at Doubleday. Widely praised for their sensitivity and depth of research, both books are considered definitive works on their subjects:Bombshell was named aNew York Times "Notable Book" of the year,[1] andClara Bow: Runnin’ Wild, a best-seller, remains in print today and is considered among the most durable titles of Onassis's two-decade editorial career.[2]
While researchingBombshell, Stenn stumbled across a reference to a long-buried Hollywood scandal about an underage dancer whose career and life were derailed after she was brutally raped by an M-G-M sales representative at an exhibitors' convention in 1937, then stigmatized by the studio's aggressive cover-up of the crime. His pursuit of this story turned into a decade-long research project, one notable result of which was his astonishing discovery that the victim, Patricia Douglas, was still alive. He located her and persuaded her to tell her story, which he first detailed in a 2003 article forVanity Fair.[3] Stenn subsequently produced a documentary film on the subject,Girl 27 (2007), which incorporated footage of both the M-G-M exhibitors’ convention and of Douglas herself, who had agreed to appear on-camera for the first time shortly before her death. The film was picked up for distribution by Red Envelope Entertainment (Netflix), then Magnolia Pictures after its premiere in competition at theSundance Film Festival.
The revelations regarding sexual misconduct by certain powerful men in the entertainment industry that received widespread media coverage beginning in late 2017 brought renewed attention toGirl 27, in recognition of its documentary evidence of the perennial existence of this systemic problem. In aNew York Times op-ed piece in January 2018, Stenn made the point that "Injustice can thrive only in silence, and finally the story of Patricia Douglas and others like her now resonates in Hollywood and beyond."[4]
Stenn is a passionate and generous supporter of film preservation, an activity that grew out of his discovery, while researching his Clara Bow biography, that more than two-thirds of her silent films were believed to either no longer exist, or to survive only on unstablenitrate film stock. His search for Bow's lost or endangered films has resulted in the location and/or preservation of at least twenty-five titles, with Stenn personally funding the restoration of four Bow features:Parisian Love (1925),Mantrap (1926) andThe Saturday Night Kid (1929) at theUCLA Film and Television Archive; andCapital Punishment (1925) at the Library of Congress.[5] Stenn has also been active in tracking down other films previously thought to have been lost, including at least one dozen short films featuring silent screen child starBaby Peggy;[6] the featureThe Letter (1929), starring theatrical legendJeanne Eagels;[7][8] and most recently, the original twelve-reel version of directorJames Whale'sThe Road Back (1937), which had been cut by almost thirty minutes after its original release at the behest ofNazi Germany. Preserved by theLibrary of Congress with funds from Martin Scorsese'sFilm Foundation, this restored version ofThe Road Back premiered at the Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival) in February 2016.[9] Stenn also has served since 2009 on the Board of the Film Department at theMuseum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York,[10] and is also a member of the Board of Advisors of the UCLA Film and Television Archive[11] and the Board of Trustees at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York.[12]
