Biography

First achieved fame as a champion cyclist who took part in the Tour De France. His cycling career came to an end after he suffered major injuries in a cycling accident, which caused some facial disfigurement and may have contributed to his early death. He became an assistant to the British producer David Deutsch and then a Hollywood screenwriter with a big reputation as a script doctor.

His ability to present his ideas in a charismatic and arresting way during meetings with studio heads, producers and other executives was something of a Hollywood legend; he was, his friend John Boorman famously said, "good in a room". This was of great benefit to Boorman during the making of "Point Blank", the film which established both of them in Hollywood.

I love L.A., because it seems to me to be absolutely what America is, at least one aspect of America, and it doesn't kid around, you know - you either take it or you don't take it.

[on San Francisco]: It was very much a touristy sort of town, a town sort of on the asshole of America, it seemed to me. If you couldn't face the Middle West and the West and what modern America is, you retreated to San Francisco and hung on for your dear life. It's a very sweet sort of city, but it's obviously not America.