Only When I Laugh

William Hurt has beaten out such heavyweight production companies as Guber-Peters to nab the dramatic rights to the life story of John Callahan, paralyzed from the chest down in an L.A. car accident in 1972 at age 21. Callahan overcame alcoholism 11 years ago and today is a syndicated cartoonist in Portland, Ore., sketching offbeat, sometimes mordant cartoons with his weakened right hand.

Callahan’s manager, Deborah Levin, told us that Hurt optioned Callahan’s recently published autobiography, “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot,” to develop as a one-man stage show, then a film. The title is from the caption of a Callahan cartoon in which a sheriff’s posse discovers an empty wheelchair at the edge of a desert; much of Callahan’s humor revolves around disability and derives from his admitted inner rage.

“There’s a really strong chapter in the book about alcoholism,” Levin said, “and Hurt seemed to feel a kinship as a recovered alcoholic.”

“We didn’t think of a play, with just a wheelchair and graphics of the cartoons projected on stage. That was Hurt’s idea and it really sent shivers down our spine.”