A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : WHODUNIT : The Case of the Disputed Tomatoes

Who wrote the current Universal film “Fried Green Tomatoes”? Depends on where you look.

Although the on-screen credits name the late Carol Sobieski and the novel’s author, Fannie Flagg, as the writers, the film’s press kit, many reviews, billboards and posters listed Flagg and producer-director Jon Avnet. Sobieski’s name is omitted completely. A paragraph in the film’s production notes even states that “Avnet spent four years adapting the book.”’

According to a studio source, much of the film’s advertising was printed before the screenplay credit was decided by the Writers Guild of America West arbitration, which awarded screenplay credit to Flagg and Sobieski last December. According to WGA rules, an arbitration is done automatically whenever a producer or director--in this case, Avnet--applies for a screenwriting credit.

A Writers Guild source, who requested anonymity says, “Carol was the first writer on the project and the idea that Avnet was suggesting that she shouldn’t get credit is absurd, especially on a book adaptation. It was also a major long shot that he would get any credit.”

Sobieski, who died in November, 1990 at age 51, began work on the film’s screenplay adaptation in 1988 and completed numerous drafts before she stopped working on the project in 1989. According to Sobieski’s husband, Jim, Flagg was then brought in to write a draft and Avnet subsequently began working on the project as a writer.

Jim Sobieski also says that Avnet contends he had done extensive notes on the project on the script and offered to show them to her, but she refused. “She told him that she didn’t want to see his notes and that she would write her own screenplay,” says Sobieski.

Sobieski says that Avnet claims that Carol wanted her name taken off the credits. “He called me last week and said that the arbitration was over, but that Carol didn’t ever want credit,” he says. “That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard. She never said anything about that when she was alive and it was never in any of her contracts.”

A spokesman for Avnet said he was unavailable for comment.