Writers Guild Nominees for Best Screenplay

Three first-time screenwriters and three novelists who helped adapt their own books for the screen are among the Writers Guild of America nominees for best screenplays of 1991.

Included among the guild’s nominees announced on Wednesday are the writers of some of the more frequently mentioned choices for best picture in the upcoming Oscar competition, including “Bugsy,” “JFK,” “The Prince of Tides” and “The Silence of the Lambs.”

At least three of the nominees inspired national debates on the subjects they presented: “JFK” for its conspiracy theories in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; “Thelma & Louise,” a female buddy picture, was talked about because it put women in traditionally male roles, and “Boyz N the Hood,” a realistic drama set in gang-torn South-Central Los Angeles that stressed pro-family, pro-education and anti-violence attitudes.

The first-time screenwriters nominated are John Singleton for “Boyz N the Hood,” Callie Khouri for “Thelma & Louise” and Meg Kasdan, who shares writing credit with her husband and veteran writer-director Lawrence Kasdan, for “Grand Canyon.” All are nominated in the best original screenplay category.

Joining them in that category are previously produced screenwriters James Toback for “Bugsy” and Richard LaGravenese for “The Fisher King.”

Reached by telephone on Wednesday, Singleton said the nomination for the screenplay that he wrote while a film student at USC “feels good. That’s what I went to school for--to be a screenwriter.”

Singleton said he believes the nomination is a recognition that “cinema reflects the reality of life.”

Khouri, contacted at home, said she was “thrilled” about being recognized by her peers. “I hope the subject matter had as much to do with the nomination as craft,” she said. “I was trying to tell a story with two women in it that we hadn’t seen before.”

In the best-adapted screenplay category, three of the nominees include the novelists who wrote the original source material for the films “The Commitments,” “Fried Green Tomatoes” and “The Prince of Tides.” They are: Roddy Doyle who joined with screenwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais to write “The Commitments” based on Doyle’s book; Fannie Flagg, who teamed with the late Carol Sobieski to write “Fried Green Tomatoes,” based on Flagg’s original piece “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe,” and Pat Conroy who adapted his book, “The Prince of Tides,” with Becky Johnston. It is also Conroy’s first crack at screenwriting.

Also nominated for best adapted screenplay are Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar for their work on “JFK,” which is based on the books “On the Trail of the Assassins” by Jim Garrison, and “Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy,” by Jim Marrs. The fifth nominee is Ted Tally for the suspense thriller “The Silence of the Lambs,” which is based on the novel by Thomas Harris.

Winners of the guild’s 44th annual screen awards, as well as television and radio writing awards, will be announced on March 22, at banquets in Los Angeles and New York. Carl Reiner will emcee in Los Angeles.