Roger L. Simon
Encyclopedia
Roger Lichtenberg Simon (born November 22, 1943) is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is currently CEO of Pajamas Media
. He is the author of ten novels, including the Moses Wine detective series, and six screenplays. He has served as president of the West Coast branch of PEN, a member of the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America
, and was on the faculty of the American Film Institute
and the Sundance Institute
.
for co-writing the screenplay of the 1989 film Enemies, a Love Story
. Among his other screenwriting credits are Bustin' Loose
, with Richard Pryor
, My Man Adam
which he also directed, and Scenes from a Mall
, with Woody Allen
and Bette Midler
.
, suggested that a book Simon had written about a veteran of the Bay of Pigs Invasion
who goes crazy and kidnaps the son of a radical lawyer, had poor commercial prospects. Rinzler suggested that Simon do something "more Rolling Stone."
In response, Simon, who had recently been exploring the works of Raymond Chandler
and Ross MacDonald
came up with the idea of updating the private-eye genre with a "hip", "political" and edgy "longhair." Six weeks later, Simon had finished the first Moses Wine novel. "The Big Fix." At the time, Simon was living in Echo Park, California, where many of the stories in the Moses Wine series take place. Moses Wine was different from other fictional detectives that Simon saw as devoid of ethnicity, family, friends, or interests outside of work. In Moses Wine, Simon created a character that was proudly Jewish, divorced, and given to smoking marijuana. The cases taken on by Moses Wine were also unconventional. "The Big Fix" focused on the case of an Abbie Hoffman
-like radical prankster who attempts to derail the presidential candidacy of a liberal democrat. "The Big Fix" won several awards and became a best-seller. It was later turned into a popular movie starring Richard Dreyfuss
in 1978.'
'The Big Fix received the John Creasey Award for best first crime novel from the Crime Writers of Great Britain.
Responding to speculation that he had uncovered information related to the killing of Alex Odeh
, a regional director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination League who had spoken out regarding the takeover of an Italian cruise-ship by Palestinians, Simon said that while he had visited Israel twice and talked to Jews and Arabs in the West Bank
, he had not made any inquiries about the case. Simon said, "This is not fact, this is fiction. If I had accidentally uncovered any information, I would have gone right to the FBI. It's a capital case."
, a movie about an illegal immigrant working as a gardener in Los Angeles while struggling to keep his son away from gangs. The film, considered a contender for the 2011 Academy Awards
was directed by Chris Weitz
.
Simon experienced a political transformation in which he felt alienated from what he saw as the excesses of the Left after the realities of the September 11 attacks affected him. He jokes, "I may be the first American writer who was profiled both by Mother Jones
and National Review
." He supports same-sex marriage
and the War on Terror
, and contends that those issues are linked. He also edits a weblog. In 2005 he founded, with jazz guitarist Charles Johnson, webmaster of the Little Green Footballs
weblog, a startup company called Pajamas Media
. Pajamas Media expanded in 2008 into Internet television with Pajamas TV, now known as PJTV. Simon, with screenwriter Lionel Chetwynd
, hosts PJTV's "Poliwood" show, covering the intersection of politics and Hollywood.
Simon's first non-fiction book, Blacklisting Myself: Memoir of a Hollywood Apostate in the Age of Terror, was published by Encounter Books in February 2009.
, New York
, on November 22, 1943, Simon is a graduate of Dartmouth College
and the Yale School of Drama
. He has been married three times. He is currently married to Sheryl Longin, who wrote the screenplay for Dick
, a film spoof of Watergate. In 1997, Simon directed the feature film Prague Duet from a script he and Longin wrote.
Pajamas Media
PJ Media is a media company that uses the Internet to present and comment on the news.Founded in 2004 by a network primarily, but not exclusively, made up of conservatives and libertarians led by mystery writer, screenwriter, and blogger Roger L...
. He is the author of ten novels, including the Moses Wine detective series, and six screenplays. He has served as president of the West Coast branch of PEN, a member of the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
, and was on the faculty of the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
and the Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981 that actively advances the work of filmmakers and storytellers worldwide...
.
Writing
Simon was nominated for an Academy AwardAcademy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for co-writing the screenplay of the 1989 film Enemies, a Love Story
Enemies, a Love Story (film)
Enemies, a Love Story is a 1989 film directed by Paul Mazursky, based on the novel Enemies, a Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer.-Plot:...
. Among his other screenwriting credits are Bustin' Loose
Bustin' Loose
This article is about the movie. For the TV series of the same name, see Bustin' Loose .Bustin' Loose is a film released by Universal Pictures in 1981 starring Richard Pryor as an ex-con who gets a second chance after violating his probation...
, with Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...
, My Man Adam
My Man Adam
-Plot:High schooler Adam Swit constantly daydreams about the same beautiful girl. Soon new student Sabrina McKay shows up who's identical to the girl of his dreams. Struggling to win her over, he doesn't do so well until a complex conspiracy throws them both into potential peril.-Principal cast:...
which he also directed, and Scenes from a Mall
Scenes from a Mall
Scenes from a Mall is a 1991 satirical film directed by Paul Mazursky with a screenplay by Roger L. Simon and Mazursky, starring Bette Midler and Woody Allen. Woody Allen's character, Nick, is married to author Deborah, played by Midler. After years of a happy marriage, Nick reveals to her he's had...
, with Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
and Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
.
The Big Fix
Roger L. Simon began to develop the idea for Moses Wine when Alan Rinzler, who was working as an editor at Straight Arrow Books, a venture by Rolling StoneRolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, suggested that a book Simon had written about a veteran of the Bay of Pigs Invasion
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...
who goes crazy and kidnaps the son of a radical lawyer, had poor commercial prospects. Rinzler suggested that Simon do something "more Rolling Stone."
In response, Simon, who had recently been exploring the works of Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
and Ross MacDonald
Ross MacDonald
David Ross MacDonald is a Canadian sailor. He began sailing at the age of 11....
came up with the idea of updating the private-eye genre with a "hip", "political" and edgy "longhair." Six weeks later, Simon had finished the first Moses Wine novel. "The Big Fix." At the time, Simon was living in Echo Park, California, where many of the stories in the Moses Wine series take place. Moses Wine was different from other fictional detectives that Simon saw as devoid of ethnicity, family, friends, or interests outside of work. In Moses Wine, Simon created a character that was proudly Jewish, divorced, and given to smoking marijuana. The cases taken on by Moses Wine were also unconventional. "The Big Fix" focused on the case of an Abbie Hoffman
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....
-like radical prankster who attempts to derail the presidential candidacy of a liberal democrat. "The Big Fix" won several awards and became a best-seller. It was later turned into a popular movie starring Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...
in 1978.'
'The Big Fix received the John Creasey Award for best first crime novel from the Crime Writers of Great Britain.
Raising the Dead
In "Raising the Dead," Wine is retained by an Arab organization to prove that it had nothing to do with a terrorist attack. Most of the story takes place in Israel and Los Angeles, where a young member of a militant Jewish group has gone underground.Responding to speculation that he had uncovered information related to the killing of Alex Odeh
Alex Odeh
Alex Odeh was an Arab-American anti-discrimination activist who was killed in a bombing as he opened the door of his office at 1905 East 17th Street, Santa Ana, California...
, a regional director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination League who had spoken out regarding the takeover of an Italian cruise-ship by Palestinians, Simon said that while he had visited Israel twice and talked to Jews and Arabs in the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
, he had not made any inquiries about the case. Simon said, "This is not fact, this is fiction. If I had accidentally uncovered any information, I would have gone right to the FBI. It's a capital case."
California Roll
At the start of California Roll Wine is feeling his age and recovering from a mid-life crisis when he is invited to Silicon Valley by Alex Wiznitsky, a young genius known as the Wiz, who wants him to become head of security for Tulip, a computer company that rose from backstreet obscurity into the Fortune 500 in only three years. Soon after, one of the Wiz's collaborators, another genius known as the Last Nerd, has disappeared. Wine eventually follows the case to Japan where roughly half the story takes place.The Straight Man
In "The Straight Man" Wine has quit his posh job in corporate security and is back in West Los Angeles where he is half-heartedly doing private detective work from his apartment while trying to cure his mental angst with regular visits to a psychiatrist. This psychiatrist, himself disabled and using a wheelchair, asks Wine to investigate a possible murder. The dead man, Mike Ptak, was the husband of a patient being treated by the psychiatrist.Autobiographical nature
Simon says that the books are partially autobiographical. He said, "he series reflects where I was and where I am. It's my diary. I have to have some new thing happening in my life that engages me. I wrap a mystery around that. That's why there aren't more books. I've always been told that I should be doing one every year-and-a-half. I can't. I can't treat it like a television series, every week a new mystery."Awards
The Wine novels have been nominated for Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America,.A Better Life
Simon was the first writer for A Better LifeA Better Life
A Better Life is a 2011 American drama film directed by Chris Weitz. The screenplay, originally known as The Gardener, was written by Eric Eason based on a story by Roger L. Simon.-Plot:...
, a movie about an illegal immigrant working as a gardener in Los Angeles while struggling to keep his son away from gangs. The film, considered a contender for the 2011 Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
was directed by Chris Weitz
Chris Weitz
Christopher John "Chris" Weitz is an American producer, writer, director and actor. He is best known for his work with his brother, Paul Weitz, on the comedy films American Pie and About a Boy, as well as directing the film adaptation of the novel The Golden Compass and the film adaptation of New...
.
Ideological transition
Simon remained conventionally liberal until the 1990s when he began asking questions in response to events such as the trial of O.J. Simpson. Simon, a former civil rights activist in the 1960s, said he was shocked by "the kind of essential dishonesty to justice" of Simpson's acquittal. Simon said, "I found the use of racial politics in the O.J. trial so repellent to me, morally, but also, I couldn't believe it was happening right there in front of my eyes. It started to shake up some things. And then came 9/11."Simon experienced a political transformation in which he felt alienated from what he saw as the excesses of the Left after the realities of the September 11 attacks affected him. He jokes, "I may be the first American writer who was profiled both by Mother Jones
Mother Jones (magazine)
Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...
and National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
." He supports same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
and the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
, and contends that those issues are linked. He also edits a weblog. In 2005 he founded, with jazz guitarist Charles Johnson, webmaster of the Little Green Footballs
Little Green Footballs
Little Green Footballs is an American political blog run by web designer Charles Johnson.Media observers in the United States long described the site as "right wing", but since 2007, the site's emphasis has changed, such that "LGF has become better known for the various fights it picks with many...
weblog, a startup company called Pajamas Media
Pajamas Media
PJ Media is a media company that uses the Internet to present and comment on the news.Founded in 2004 by a network primarily, but not exclusively, made up of conservatives and libertarians led by mystery writer, screenwriter, and blogger Roger L...
. Pajamas Media expanded in 2008 into Internet television with Pajamas TV, now known as PJTV. Simon, with screenwriter Lionel Chetwynd
Lionel Chetwynd
Lionel Chetwynd is a London-born Canadian-American screenwriter, motion picture and television film director and producer.-Life and career:...
, hosts PJTV's "Poliwood" show, covering the intersection of politics and Hollywood.
Simon's first non-fiction book, Blacklisting Myself: Memoir of a Hollywood Apostate in the Age of Terror, was published by Encounter Books in February 2009.
Education and personal life
Born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, on November 22, 1943, Simon is a graduate of Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
and the Yale School of Drama
Yale School of Drama
The Yale School of Drama is a graduate professional school of Yale University providing training in every discipline of the theatre: acting, design , directing, dramaturgy and dramatic criticism, playwriting, stage management, sound design, technical design and production, and theater...
. He has been married three times. He is currently married to Sheryl Longin, who wrote the screenplay for Dick
Dick (film)
Dick is a 1999 American comedy film directed by Andrew Fleming from a script he wrote with Sheryl Longin. It is a parody retelling the events of the Watergate scandal which ended the presidency of Richard Nixon and features several cast members from Saturday Night Live.Kirsten Dunst and Michelle...
, a film spoof of Watergate. In 1997, Simon directed the feature film Prague Duet from a script he and Longin wrote.
Partial bibliography
- Dead Meet (1968)
- Heir (1968)
- The Mama Tass Manifesto (1970) ISBN 0-03-084528-9
- The Big Fix (Straight Arrow PressStraight Arrow PressStraight Arrow Press is a publishing company that publishes the periodicals Us Weekly and Rolling Stone....
, 1973) ISBN 0-87932-048-6 - Wild Turkey (1974) ISBN 0-87932-082-6
- Peking Duck (1979) ISBN 0-671-22880-3
- California Roll (1985) ISBN 0-394-53711-4
- The Straight Man (1986) ISBN 0-394-55837-5
- Raising the Dead (1988) ISBN 0-394-56441-3
- The Lost Coast (1997) ISBN 0-06-017707-1
- Director's Cut (2003) ISBN 0-7434-5802-8
- Blacklisting Myself: Memoir of a Hollywood Apostate in the Age of Terror (2009) ISBN 1594032475
External links
- Roger L. Simon's blog
- Simon Says: One screenwriter’s political transformation Andrew Leigh in National ReviewNational ReviewNational Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
- Blogcritics review of Blacklisting Myself
- City Journal review of "Blacklisting Myself"