PSU Magazine Winter 1995

"vampire fli ck where there were lo ts of haJ ows." It would be surprising if the works of any young cree nwriting aspirant weren't a little extreme in the ir arti ti c preten ·ions, and the early '70s were a period of major ferment in Portland 's creati ve art scene. oe be soaked up a wide ra nge of influences. The PSU Theater Department incorpo rated the American Theater Company during this peri od with the ambiti on of creat– ing a profess ional theater in res idence that would give students the opportunity to work at a high leve l of craft man hip in all aspects of theater production, from co tuming to acting to set design. oesbe was one of a number of young actor around at the time who went on to achi eve profes- ional tatus; his contemporari e include Victoria Parker, cott Parker, T erence Knox, Megan T ayl or, Monte Merrick, and Pamela Roy lance. After graduation oesbe continued to be fa cinated with drama eve n though he took a job teaching English in andy. He conscripted his tudents in to a filmmaking project that resulted in the production of " ight of the T eenage Werewolf," which premi ered at a loca l theater with tudents in tu xedo and formal gowns arri ving via limousine. But teaching English pa led in compari son to the dramati c life. After two years he moved to Lo Ange le and worked tempo rary jobs for a yea r before igning on at Universa l Studios as a typi t. hortl y he transferred to the tory department, working his way up to story edito r. This was one of his major dues- paying phases. He wasn't writing his own pieces; He was reading cript after cript after script and see ing fir thand what works and what doesn 't. Because he was o immersed in o ther people's scripts, he fo und himse lf unwilling to work on hi own and wrote a novel in read. Children in a Buming House was published in 1987. Like most fir t nove ls, it fa iled to set the world on fire but served as another credential in the slow progress upward. In the earl y 1980s Soesbe left Universal to become a free lance reader. "It's a great way to make money in Hollywood, " he say . "It se rve a lot of While a student at PSU, Doug Soesbe appeared in many plays, including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Victoria Parker in 1975. purposes. You have constant ex posure to scripts and an inside track a to wh at th ey're looking fo r. You immediately come to the attenti on of very important peopl e." Soesbe signeJ on a a full-time reader for Tri -S tar Pi ctures and eventuall y became executive sto ry editor. ln this ca pac ity he rewrote many scripts as they worked their tortured way from the mind of the origina l writer to the end product. He worked on the deve lopment of Chances Are, Blind Fury, and Tap, among orher movies. He also erved as a production executive on the latter film. It was during this phase that Soesbe ga ined one of the other cruc ia l e lements in show bu ine uccess-a fri end in high places. In l9 he signed a two-year writing contract with Tri - tar through the au pi ce of Jeff agansky, who was then pre ·ident of Tri - tar (at the time a sub ·idi ary of Co lumbia Pictures Entertainment) and who went on to become pres ident of the larger entity. Soesbe's connecti on with Sagansky was , as he puts it, "my bi g breakthrough." Be ing a major studi o writer, oesbe says, i "one of the few jobs in Holly– wood where you ca n be a writer and have a steady job. Plus," he adds, "it got me into the Writer's G uild"-anoth er impo rtant profe sional benchmark. oe be tayed at Tri - tar until 1990, when he began free lanc ing aga in . He wrote one mov ie for CBS whi ch was neve r produced (though he no tes with relief th at he did get paid for it) }1!1J subsequentl y so ld The Wrong Woman to BS. The film is the story of a young woman who is fa lse ly arre ted fo r the murder of her bo s, with whom she had narrowly avoiJed having an affair. The onl y per on who can clear her is the bo s's wife. The heroine manages to finJ th e rea l killer and thwart an attempt on her own life. The Wrong Woman was sho t in Montrea l last fa ll in two versions, one fo r commerc ial re lease on C BS telev ision and the o ther for fo re ign and cable release. The two version differ chiefl y in their gorine . O n th e et, one person wa delega ted sole ly to the task of throwing ex tra buckets of stage blood into the central murder scene in the sho ts th at would be used for the cable and fo re ign version. oesbe attended th e location shoot ing and credit his sea ons in summer stock at Cannon Beach with be ing "grea t training fo r the movies. When you're on location it' o rt of like a bunker mentality," he says. oesbe also wrote a second nove l, Scream Play, published by Berke ley Pres in 1990. Hesay · heactua ll y WINTER 1995 19