Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Jack Sheehan recalls how, for a while, his fate and that of actor Patrick Dempsey intertwined

Last week I took my 8-year-old daughter Lily to the Disney movie "Enchanted." When Lily chooses movies for our father-daughter bonding excursions, I assume that my enjoyment will be derived only from watching her reactions to the film, and from the buttered popcorn and nachos we manage to spill all over ourselves.

I never expect to enjoy the movie as much as she, but in this case I was pleasantly surprised.

The movie, which stars a sparkling new talent named Amy Adams and veteran film and television actor Patrick Dempsey, was as enjoyable a family movie as I've seen in years. Adams reminded me of a young Julie Andrews with her fresh beauty and terrific pipes, and Dempsey nailed his role as the man who against his better judgment - and the wishes of his fiancee - falls head over heels for her.

I'd be lying if I didn't say I had mixed emotions in watching Dempsey's star rise even above his current stature as the television doctor on "Grey's Anatomy." In that show he has come to be known by its fans as Dr. McDreamy, and Web sites and blogs galore share fantasies of women who consider Dempsey the ultimate hunk. (He reportedly finished second to Matt Damon in People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" selection process.)

All this fame and the show's great ratings have come none too early for Dempsey, who at 41 has been knocking around Hollywood for 20 years. But his ascendancy comes about 18 years too late for me and a screenplay I wrote. If timing is everything, then my timing when it comes to Dempsey absolutely sucked. Let me explain:

In 1989 I sold a film script to Dempsey and his producing partners at Warner Bros., who were looking for a star-making vehicle for the young actor. Just 23 at the time, Dempsey had gotten great reviews and rung up strong box office receipts in a teen comedy called "Can't Buy Me Love," in which he played a nerdy high school kid who rents the most popular girl in school to go out with him. With the "it girl" at his side at a school dance, Dempsey's character thus becomes immensely popular with the other in-crowd girls, who figure there must be some mysterious appeal to him if he can bag a date with the school hottie.

So when I received a nice check for my screenplay from Dempsey's managers, and was told to meet the following week with producer Thom Mount at Warner Bros. to put this movie into motion, I was elated.

The year before Mount had produced both "Bull Durham" and "Tequila Sunrise," so his star as a producer was every bit as bright as Dempsey's as an actor. Dempsey had one other movie in the can and about to be released as we met in La-La Land. It was a comedy called "Loverboy," and with it Dempsey would get his name above the title for the first time. This meant if the movie opened well, he would be on the A-list of young actors and that would add even more punch to my project. This was all pretty heady stuff for someone who'd written his first script totally on spec and without an agent.

The script I'd sold centered on a tragic boating accident that occurred to my best friend growing up in northern Idaho, and how the events and mystery of that one night changed both our lives. It was simply called "Buddies."

I had written the true story originally as a magazine article, but subsequent phone calls from two great actors, Jon Voight and Jack Lemmon, who both told me it would make a great movie, were my impetus for leaving a steady job as a magazine editor and spending six months, day and night, working on the script.

The Warner Bros. meeting with Mount, with Dempsey and his manager in attendance, was my first clue that my thus-far happy little journey was not going to have a Hollywood ending.

It became apparent to me five minutes into the meeting that Mount had not even read my script. He didn't know where the events of the story had occurred, he thought the time frame of the mid-1960s was unimportant and could easily be updated to the present (no doubt to save money), and he opined that the relationship between the two best friends - remember, it was called "Buddies" - would work better if the dynamics were changed to a romance between a boy and a girl. This would give the story, in his opinion, some much needed love scenes and some requisite "skin."

It was apparent that the producer's plans for the movie he wanted to make with rising star Patrick Dempsey had nothing in common with the script I had written.

My motivation had been art; his was strictly commerce. I surmised the only reason I had been invited to the meeting was because Dempsey and his agent had purchased a script from me that they loved and thought would be a great vehicle for him.

The Warner Bros. meeting was so ludicrous, in fact, that when it was adjourned about 45 minutes after starting, I shared with Dempsey in strong language my disappointment and anger.

"Oh, I didn't think it went so bad," Dempsey said, trying his best to calm me down. "Writers always get treated like crap in script meetings. Producers hate writers, Jack. Didn't anyone tell you that?"

Despite the disastrous meeting, negotiations continued with some large six-figure purchase numbers being thrown around if my movie went into production. Meanwhile, we all waited to see whether "Loverboy" would open big at the box office.

Well, as movie buffs know, "Loverboy" bombed, knocking Dempsey several rungs down the "desired actor" list. And caught in the implosion was my script, which Warner Bros. put in turnaround, along with a few other smaller-budget projects.

The following year I optioned the script several times as a television movie of the week to ABC, but when creative differences began to drive me batty once again, I took my little movie and went home. I decided that rather than ruin a personal story that was so important to me, I would keep it safely tucked away in a cubby in my office, where it remains to this day.

This crossroads turned me away from Hollywood and into the world of book writing, which I've found to be a more creatively fulfilling avenue, with far fewer potholes. But I'm delighted that Dempsey stayed the course and has found the stardom he deserves, even if it came two decades too late for me.

Maybe I should send him my script again.

Just kidding.

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