Pat LaskyABOUT PAT SILVER-LASKY
Pat Silver-Lasky wrote as a team with her late husband, the well known Hollywood screen writer and author, Jesse L. Lasky, Jr., son of the film pioneer. Jesse Lasky, Sr.'s company, Jesse Lasky Feature Play Company produced the first full length motion picture in Hollywood, The Squaw Man. Jesse, Jr. wrote 40 films, 8 for C.B. DeMille, includingThe Ten Commandments, and Samson And Delilah.
With Jesse, Pat wrote 4 books (including the American best seller historical novel, The Offer), 8 produced films, nearly 100 produced TV scripts, (including the award winning 'Explorers' series ('Ten Who Dared' in U.S.A.). Their verse play, 'Ghost Town' won several awards in the States. In 1984/6 their TV series, 'Philip Marlowe' won three awards in the USA, and in Holland. Jesse Lasky Jr. died in 1988.
Born in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., Pat attended the University of Washington as a Drama Major, Stanford University and Reed College, where she produced and directed their first play.
She produced, wrote, directed, and acted (as Barbara Hayden) in the first live TV drama series from Hollywood: 'Mabel's Fables', for KTLA (Paramount), appeared in feature roles in films (Sammy Fuller's The Crimson Kimono) and played leading and co-starring roles on television, and directed for the theatre in Los Angeles and Palm Springs.
As an A.S.C.A.P. writer, she wrote lyrics for 14 published and recorded songs, including "While You're Young" for Johnny Mathis's album, "Portrait of Johnny". She wrote the lyrics for two films at Columbia Studios.
Pat has lived in London since the early 1960's and has duel citizenship. In 1987 she and Jesse wrote the play, 'Vivien', based on their book, "Love Scene", the story of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. Pat directed its highly acclaimed first production at the Melrose Theatre, Los Angeles, 1987 and directed the London Rehearsed Reading of 'VIVIEN' in 1992.
Pat served as a Story Editor on the second MARLOWE series (see credits), has written articles and interviews, contributed to various British antique journals, written short stories for international magazines including a 1999 series of romantic short stories for the magazine, A World of Romance.
She has lectured on script writing at several American Universities, was Script Consultant and guest lecturer at the London (International) Film School for eight years until 1999.
Her book, SCREENWRITING FOR THE 21ST CENTURY was published for B.T. Batsford Books (Chrysalis Publishing) in March, 2004.
To find out more visit her website at : www.Pat Silver-Lasky.com or her blog at: http://pat-silver.blogspot.com
I've been a professional writer for TV, Films and books most of my life and have spent a great deal of it in London. When I married Peter Betts in 1998, I had already discovered that he was a formidable cartoonist and researcher and could write. We decided to do a book together: a light-hearted look at conmen through the ages. Accurate, meaningful, a warning to all easy marks, but with a touch of humor. Peter did the cartoons, most of the research and some of the writing.
We soon discovered we were overwhelmed with too much material; it could make 6 small cartoon embellished 'gift' books. We gave it to my film agent. He got rapid interest from a publisher, but the publisher didn't like the idea of it being humorous and wanted a thick cumbersome tome. We said, not our style.
Then at the London Book Fair we met another agent who expressed interest. We sent him the book and in a matter of days he called with an offer from a very good publisher-- and a not unreasonable advance. We celebrated with a bottle of bubbly and a roast chicken with lentils in our favorite wine bar/chop house.
The next day the agent called back. He couldn't reach the publisher. The third day he called again. The publisher had retracted his offer. If that's not a horror, I don't know what. No explanation. We shouldn't have counted our chickens or sprung for that bottle of Dom Perignon. But that's writers. It was the beginning of the end of book stores as we knew them and publishers with bankrolls to advance for worthwhile books from less famous authors. But by then we were planning to move to California, so put the book and our dreams away for the moment.
The story is really not ended because now that my novel, Ride the Tiger is out, we are planning to bring Scams Schemes Scumbags to readers on Amazon paperback and on all ebook formats -- hopefully, for the 2012 Christmas Market. Look out for its bright yellow cover.
Ride the tigerABOUT RIDE THE TIGER
Fame, money and sex, that's what tinsletown is all about. Madelaine Brent wanted them all and she always got everything she wanted. But sometimes everything is too much and somebody gets murdered. Maddie remembered an ancient Chinese proverb her agent told her as a warning, so long ago: 'She who rides the tiger better not dismount.' Was she about to fall off?
This is the deeply penetrating story of a film star who puts her career and her erotic desires above all else. Madelaine Brent is willing to undergo the tortuous beauty treatments that will keep her on top - a survivor in the film world, the Las Vegas showtime scene and a survivor in the art of love. But Maddie does not foresee the consequences her actions will have on the men in her life: her British film director husband Charles who is devoted to her, the one-night stand she thought she could dismiss, the French film star who fathered her child, the young writer-director she seduced and the actor who holds her spellbound. Her beautiful daughter Cathy, alienated from her mother, has taken a dangerous path that leads to prison. Maddie's path leads her to a place she didn't expect - and a trail of murders.
