Alvin Sargent

Born on April 12, 1926, in Philadelphia, Alvin Supowitz (his real name) attended Upper Darby High School, an illustrious Pennsylvania institution located just outside his hometown. But he dropped out to serve in the Navy during World War II. “If you dropped out of high school during the war, even if your grades weren’t very good, you would automatically pass,” he humorously recalled in an interview. In the army he learned to type. “Back then I didn’t even imagine that one day I would dedicate myself to writing, but I discovered that I really liked it.”

At the end of the war, he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked in a textile company. Shortly after he joined The Circle Theater, a theater company in which he met Sydney Earl Chaplin , son of Charles Chaplin . He came to play a brief role, specifically he was a soldier, in From Here to Eternity , by Fred Zinneman . For many years he worked as an advertising salesperson, while he spent his spare time writing. A friend advised him to turn to an agent, who got him a job as a scriptwriter on the 1961 series Bus Stop . Although he was quickly fired due to his inexperience, little by little he managed to get his head in the business, dealing with chapters of The Naked City and Alfred Hitchcock Presents .

He made his debut as a screenwriter for the big screen with Ladrona por amor , starring  Shirley MacLaine  and Michael Caine , and he began to dedicate himself to book versions, his great speciality, with I Watch the Way , by John Frankenheimer , based on a book by Madison Jones . For Luna de papel, he was nominated for the Oscar for the adapted screenplay for the first time. He would get it for Julia , with whom he would meet again with director Zinnemann, in which he adapted Lillian Hellman , and Ordinary People , which was based on a book by Judith Guest . JJ Abramshe always cites Alvin Sargent as his great inspiration. “I always have a copy of the script for Ordinary People next to my desk, ” says the person in charge of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker . “I’d like to create pages full of ideas, like in that job.”

He also collaborated, although he does not appear credited, in the 1976 version of A Star Is Born , and was responsible for The Electric Horseman and Accidental Hero.  

Divorced in 1975 from actress Joan Camdem ( The Tower of London ), he was linked for decades to producer and Sony executive Laura Ziskin. He collaborated with her as the person in charge of the script for Spider-Man 2 and 3 , and The Amazing Spider-Man , a reboot of the franchise. He married her a year before her death, in 2011, as a result of cancer.