Sweet Dreams for ‘Sleepless’ Writer : Movies: After years of frustration, Jeff Arch breaks into Hollywood with the summer ‘sleeper,’ which grossed $17 million its opening weekend.

After years of struggle and frustration, Jeff Arch is finally a Hollywood player. His first produced screenplay, the quirky “Sleepless in Seattle,” is turning out to be the “sleeper” of the summer, grossing an impressive $17 million its opening weekend. Arch is currently writing other screenplays for directors Penny Marshall, Barry Levinson and Ron Howard and, at last count, working on three other projects.

And TriStar, the studio releasing “Sleepless,” gave Arch the red-carpet treatment during a visit here for last week’s premiere.

“This has been the Cinderella week of all times,” Arch exclaimed, relaxing on the balcony of his Beverly Hills hotel room. “It’s like you record it all and then you play it back later. I’m on the private jet coming out here and you land in a different part of the airport. There are eight limousines waiting. This is it!’ ‘

For a decade, the 38-year-old father of two had struggled to become a successful writer. He had a buddy comedy optioned by several studios that was never made. After an Off-Broadway play of his was savaged by the critics, Arch chucked it all in 1986.

He taught high school English and owned a tae kwon do school in the small Virginia town where he lives. After the birth of his son in 1989, Arch decided to try writing again.

“I got serious,” Arch said. “I was proud of what I was doing, but I found I was starting to spin my wheels. I realized every single time I put my mind to something, no matter what it was, I got it. I got it fairly and pretty much on my terms.”

So he made his mind up he wanted to write a hit film. “I thought, ‘What can I tell my children about their dreams if I don’t go after mine?’ The idea of being a fraud by my own children just drove me crazy. I couldn’t handle it. They deserved this.”

Producer Gary Foster read “Sleepless” three years ago. “I got choked up a few times and was real touched by it,” Foster recalled. “I took it to TriStar and we were lucky enough to get it optioned.”

Still, Arch is just one of three writers receiving screenplay credit on “Sleepless.” Oscar winner David S. Ward (“The Sting”) and the film’s director, Nora Ephron, also had their hands on the project, which stars Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

“I wasn’t upset when other people were brought on,” Arch said matter-of-factly.

Most of the changes Ward and Ephron made, Foster said, involved character development and dialogue. All the references in “Sleepless” to the Cary Grant-Deborah Kerr tear-jerker “An Affair to Remember” were in Arch’s original.

“What Nora did was give it some edge--let the sentiment show when necessary,” Foster said. “It wasn’t a comedy. It was a pretty straightforward romantic drama.”

And it pretty much wore its heart on its sleeve. “But that was what was great about it,” Foster said. “Nora has said the loopiness of it, the pure romantic sentiment, is what Jeff created originally. That is the core of this movie. That can never change.”

As soon as “Sleepless” sold, Arch became a hot commodity. Within three months, he received an assignment from director Marshall to write a romantic comedy for Robert Redford.

“I went after this like crazy,” Arch admits. “That was a big, big break. The credibility I got from Penny Marshall hiring me got me Ron Howard, and from Ron Howard hiring me I got Barry Levinson, because they all talk to each other.”

Arch recently submitted the second draft of the Marshall project, “Blue Moon,” as well as the first draft for Howard on “The Georgia Waltz.” He also just completed the first act of “Special Delivery,” a “Miracle on 34th Street”-type Christmas movie. Arch spent last winter rewriting “Iron Will,” an upcoming Disney family film about dog-sled racing.

Somehow Arch manages to keep all of his projects separate. “If you want to separate yourself from the pack, this is how you have to do it,” he said. “I am starting to get a lot of money now. It’s not easy to make this money. This is blue-collar work.”

“Yahoo!” he said gleefully about the opening weekend for “Sleepless.” But even if it wasn’t a box-office hit, Arch is just happy the film got made.

“You can dislike this movie. It’s a free country. But how can anybody be mad at this movie? I don’t know if the hype is really hype. It’s word of mouth. Hype is when they paint your name on the side of a rocket and tell you you are going to like this no matter what. No one is painting our name on the side of the rocket.”