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| LOS ANGELES (AP) Leonard Schrader, who adapted the Argentine novel Kiss of the Spider Woman into an the Academy Award-nominated film and co-wrote the critically praised Mishima, has died. He was 62. Schrader, who lived in Los Angeles, died Thursday of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his brother, Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader, said Saturday from New York. Schrader had suffered from a number of ailments, including cancer, his brother said. Schrader was
born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to a family of Dutch Calvinists who forbade the brothers to see any movies. "That was a church edict," Paul Schrader said. "What they called worldly amusements were prohibited." Schrader didn't see his first film until he was in college in the 1960s. "Revolt was everywhere around us in the counterculture," his brother said. "Other kids had to vandalize government buildings. All we had to do is go to movies." Schrader attended local Calvin College and received a master's degree at the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop, where according to his website he studied with luminaries such as Kurt Vonnegut and Jorge Luis Borges. Screenwriting came naturally to the brothers, who were raised in a culture without TV or film but a lot of talk. "We came from a background of
storytellers and we were very good at that," Paul Schrader said. His brother was drawn to other cultures. "He felt like a stranger in the place where he grew up and he was naturally attracted to strangers elsewhere," Paul Schrader said. "He gravitated to stories set in Japan and South America." In 1969 and the early 1970s, Schrader lived in Japan, where he taught American literature at universities and became interested in Japanese Yakuza gangster culture. His first film wasThe Yakuza, co-written in the 1970s with his brother and starring Robert Mitchum. Sydney Pollack directed. Schrader wrote or co-wrote about a dozen movies, including 1978's Blue Collar and three Japanese-language movies. They included 1985'sMishima: A Life in Four Chapters, based on the life of the famed
Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, whom Schrader had met before his 1970 ritual suicide. Schrader co-wrote the screenplay with his wife, Chieko, and his brother. Paul Schrader directed the movie, while George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola were executive producers. Schrader's adaptation of a novel by Argentinian novelist Manuel Puig became The Kiss of the Spider Woman. It earned him a 1985 Oscar nomination and won William Hurt the award for best actor. Schrader also directed the 1991 independent movie Naked Tango, filmed in Argentina and starring Vincent D'Onofrio. Schrader taught film and screenwriting at USC and at Chapman College. In 2003 he became senior filmmaker-in-residence at the American Film Institute, where he chaired the Screenwriting Department and taught a graduate class. "I believe at heart he was a teacher," his brother said.
"He was very good at inspiring people, including me, when we were growing up ... His greatest pleasure came from teaching." Schrader is survived by his wife and brother. |
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