William Hjortsberg

William Hjortsberg

Born: February 23, 1941
Died: April 22, 2017
in New York City, New York, USA
William Reinhold "Gatz" Hjortsberg was an American novelist and screenwriter, known for his originality and for writing the screenplay of the film Legend. His novel Falling Angel was the basis for the film Angel Heart (1987). The novel was adapted into an opera in 2015, composed by J. Mark Scearce with a libretto by Lucy Thurber. His 2015 novel Mañana is a thriller set in Mexico.

Hjortsberg was the only child of a Swedish restaurateur father and a Swiss mother. He attended Dartmouth College, the Yale School of Drama (where he met Thomas McGuane), and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He was married three times, and had a son and a daughter. He died of pancreatic cancer.

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Movies for William Hjortsberg...

Creating a Myth... the Memories of 'Legend'
Title: Creating a Myth... the Memories of 'Legend'
Character: Himself
Released: May 21, 2002
Type: Movie
This 51 minute documentary of the movie "Legend" can be found as an extra on the 2002 2-disc boxed-set 'Ultimate Edition' DVD release of "Legend". The first part of the documentary deals with the fruition of the idea and the making of the movie. It includes interviews with almost all the main participants of the feature, with the exception of actor Tom Cruise, who was a no show. The second half is much more fascinating and deals with what went wrong with the movie, and it's marketing failures.