My Landlord Was a Blacklisted Screenwriter
In 1987, I was a struggling screenwriter living with two friends in a Hancock Park house. The property owner was a gentle man in his 70s named Robert Lees. He wore ascot ties and fedora hats and carried himself with a quiet dignity. One day Mr. Lees came by to collect rent. I invited him inside and upon seeing the page in my typewriter he asked what I was writing. I told him it was a screwball comedy about a Hollywood Production Assistant who steals a movie star’s prized toupee and is pursued by police, private detectives, studio bosses and a violent bounty hunter.
“What happens in act two,” Mr. Lees replied.
I stammered something like, “Uh, I, ahhh…”
“…You don’t have an act two?”
“I thought I did,” I said.
He smiled.
“Are you a writer?” I asked.
“Used to be.”
“Anything I heard of?”
“That was a long time ago.”
Over the next year I saw Mr. Lees monthly as he came to collect rent. He always asked about my screenplays and listened as I complained about the difficulty I was having. “Don’t think too much,” he said. “It kills creativity.” On one occasion Mr. Lees came by with his adult daughter. As he spoke with my roommate, I asked his daughter…
