Tuesday, February 07, 2012

SO MUCH IN SO LITTLE TIME



This remarkable man you see on this page is the manager for our company Creative Horizons. This year marks the 20th anniversary of our friendship. We were introduced by another mutual friend at the time and bar none this has been one of the most remarkable friends I have ever had in my life. The other being the amazing and incredible David Holmes. Jimmy has always supported what I was doing whether it was being an agent myself, a songwriter or any kind of writer. I retired four years ago in 2008 and in these four short years, I have never been as creative as I have in these four years. Of course finding my partner, John Nugent was absolutely the best present from Almighty God other than my parents and my eternal soul. And I certainly would have little or nothing accomplished without him. But now Jimmy Chapel has taken the most active role of all times and is representing twenty musicals (you read right) and nine original sit com pilots with additional episodes already created. Jimmy is both a gentleman and a scholar. Not only can he be a great reader on scripts, he's an excellent proofreader to boot. We started with a sit com called "First Mother" which I actually first created in 1992- about the same time that I met him in Orange County. The pitch: "The most eligible bachelor in the world becomes quite suddenly the Jewish president of the United States and his Brooklyn mother moves in the white House, lox, stock and bagel and takes Washington by storm." Back then, the idea of a Jewish president under any circumstances, would have been as impossible as a Mormon becoming president. So last July, Jimmy called me and told me that he had Lanie Kazan interested in portraying the First Mother and could we possibly get it together. Now remember, it had been twenty years since I had touched this material. We had a teleplay, but it was in the wrong format. The wrong format in Hollywood, today is the equivalent of being a bride's maid in jeans and a halter top. So out we went to get FINAL DRAFT an extraordinary software program and re-typed the original. It went to ABC and ABC thought it was too philosophical and not funny enough-- but invited us to submit other stuff. Then a strange man who was a former stunt man had a connection to FOX and with his advice, he said we needed a series bible and at least three additional episodes. We went back and wrote six more episodes. We then started writing more and soon we had SENIOR HIGH DROPOUTS, BREAK A LEG, TAXING LAUGHTER, IRISH LEFTOVERS, PROFESSOR CHUTZPAH, THE GOLDILOCKS BOYS and ZORRO'S DELI. That's what he's amazingly representing today. The funny thing is that the stuntman turned out to be a flake who actually knew no one, but had all this great CORRECT advice. Isn't that crazy?It just goes to show you that a blessing in disguise can hold more benefits than the fraud he represents. Jimmy Chapel is our hero, bar none. God love you, Jim for all your efforts!

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