Melissa Marie Mathison (June 3, 1950 – November 4, 2015) was an American film and television screenwriter and an activist for the Tibetan independence movement. She was best known for writing the for the films The Black Stallion (1979) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), the latter of which earned her the Saturn Award for Best Writing and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Mathison later wrote The Indian in the Cupboard (1995), based on Lynne Reid Banks's 1980 children's novel of the same name, and Kundun (1997), a biographical-drama film about the Dalai Lama. Her final film credit was The BFG (2016), which marked her third collaboration with film director Steven Spielberg.
Early years
Mathison was born on June 3, 1950, in
Los Angeles, one of five siblings. Her father, Richard Randolph Mathison, was the Los Angeles bureau chief of
Newsweek. Her mother was Margaret Jean (née Kieffer) Mathison, a food writer and convenience-foods entrepreneur. After graduating from Providence High School in 1968, Mathison attended the University of California, Berkeley.
[ Her family was friendly with Francis Ford Coppola, whose children were babysat by Mathison. Coppola offered her a job as his assistant on The Godfather Part II (1974), an opportunity for which she left her studies at UC Berkeley.][
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With Coppola's encouragement, she wrote a script for The Black Stallion, adapted from the novel, that caught Steven Spielberg's attention.[ "Melissa Mathison: a masterful storyteller who brought ET to life", The Guardian, November 5, 2015.]
Screenwriting and production credits
Mathison wrote the screenplay for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) in collaboration with Steven Spielberg. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.[
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Dalai Lama
Mathison met the Dalai Lama in 1990 when she was writing the script for Kundun (1997) and developed a lasting friendship with him. She continued to work as an activist for freedom and was on the board of the International Campaign for Tibet.[Melissa Mathison, A Conversation with the Dalai Lama , Rolling Stone, July 21, 2011]
Personal life and death
Mathison had an extramarital relationship with Francis Ford Coppola while working as his assistant on The Godfather Part II, an affair that lasted through the production of Apocalypse Now.
Screenwriting filmography
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Saturn Award for Best Writing
Nominated—Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, (1983)
The line "E.T. phone home." is ranked 15th among the top 100 quotations of U.S. cinema by the American Film Institute. |
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| Segment 2, "Kick the Can"; credited as "Josh Rogan" |
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| Storyline consultant, English language translation |
Posthumous release
Nominated—Saturn Award for Best Writing |
External links
