“WHAT CAN YOU DO? I CAN WRITE?”

A review of “The Player” (1992) directed by Robert Altman

“Don’t you read the trades? The New York Times business section? They say Larry Levy’s gonna start making meaningful pictures at the studio. What are you gonna do when you can’t cut it at the studio anymore?  Huh, Griffin, what are you gonna do? I can write. That’s what I can do!”

With those words Vincent D’Onofrio, playing failing screenwriter David Kahane, meets his own demise, because despite being perhaps the most indispensable character in any movie, the writer always gets screwed. In this case he gets killed, or murdered, depending on your definition of manslaughter.

This is the key plot device of one of the great movies ever made, perhaps the best ever about the film industry itself, 1992’s The Player starring Tim Robbins as Griffin Mill, directed by the veteran Robert Altman.

But Kahane’s declaration that while an over-expense accounted studio exec is ultimately not of particular importance, he is, because he can write. These words have been hailed as a badge of honor by all writers, who despite the odds stacked against them, remain as they have since the Roman Empire, the scribes who tell the stories that man has always wanted to hear. No matter the technical innovations, the writer must write it down. Even A.I. is useless without some writer somewhere having written the story first.

There should be an epitaph at the beginning of the film, “In the name of all writers.” Instead this phrase appears on a postcard, part of a terror-turned-blackmail campaign waged by an unknown screenwriter against Griffin Mill. As the man said in “25 words or less,” a “beauty hook.”

Michael Tolkien

Tolkien is one of the great underrated writers of novels and screenplays. He is not prolific but he is, to use another Griffin Mill phrase, “a talent.” Prior to 1992 he had written several books, including The Rapture and The Player, both adapted into films. These works show him to be a thoughtful observer of the human condition with a special place in his heart for Los Angeles, California, which as both of these books demonstrates is the home not only of the film industry but to both a strong swinger’s movement as well as evangelical Christianity bent towards Apocalyptic predictions.

Michael Tolkien wrote the novel and screenplay, The Player

Both those books were made into films. He continued working, producing quality, if not quantity, but in 2022 he produced a masterpiece, the TV mini-series The Offer, detailing how The Godfather came to be made.

Robert Altman was brought on board to direct The Player, with Fine Line, a division of New Line Cinema, as the studio. Tolkien wrote the screenplay, which deviates at several key places from the novel, improving upon it.

Bob Altman

This movie was part of a remarkable comeback in the career of Bob Altman, an alcoholic curmudgeon known as being hard to handle. No doubt one of the greats, Altman made the classic M*A*S*H (1970), and a number of other films that attracted great actors in ensemble casts, with terrific, overlapping dialogue, but ultimately much of his work appeared self-indulgent. In the early 1990s, seemingly washed up, he made The Player, Short Cuts and Pret-A-Porter, a sendup of the fashion industry. Longtime producer David Brown more than likely kept Altman in line on The Player.

Robert Altman was one of the great old-time directors

The film did not do great box office, although with a relatively small budget it made some $20 million, but like a lot of terrific movies found its audience over time. However, it played into a general feeling that movies about the movie industry do not sell. There are exceptions (Sunset Boulevard, Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood). It is based on this premise that What Makes Sammy Run, a navel-gazing 1941 novel, could not be developed even by Ben Stiller in his prime.

Hollywood starring as Hollywood

Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of The Player is Altman’s ability to attract seemingly every big name star in the film orbit of the early 1990s to play themselves, and that does not count a terrific cast of actors to play fictional characters. The movie includes several “happy mistakes” that make the final cut anyway, plus homage to the long tracking shots of Alfred Hitchcock, and maybe also Martin Scorsese.

Chevy Chase wanted to play Griffin Mill, but Tim Robbins, hot off of Bull Durham, was chosen as the smarmy executive in a fictional studio, possibly based on Sony/Tri-Star/ Columbia.

The plot twists

The film opens on the studio lot in classic Altman style. A studio guide walks Japanese investors touring the lot, a nod a to the Japanese buyouts of many U.S. interests at the time. A handsome young bank/studio executive hits on a gorgeous blonde starlet in a striking red dress, mistaking her for Rebecca De Mornay before telling her, “You’re even prettier than Rebecca De Mornay.” Three lawyers engage in studio gossip, and we hear that there may be a “shake up” in which Griffin Mill may be replaced by somebody name Larry Levy.

The actual Buck Henry, screenwriter of The Graduate, walks across the lot with studio security chief Walter Stuckel (Fred Ward) extolling the virtues of long tracking shots, mentioning a film Stuckel has not heard of. Later we see Stuckel talking about Hitchcock’s use of tracking shots to a young mail room clerk, claiming his father had been “key grip on that picture.”

Buck Henry, who wrote The Graduate, is one of many Hollywood players playing themselves

We see Griffin Mill arriving in an expensive car, where he is approached by a writer who tries to pitch him a script but Griffin brushes him off. Another writer approaches Griffin’s office and the mail room clerk, Jimmy, mistakes him for Martin Scorsese.

Studio chief Joel Levison (veteran actor Brion James) arrives, claiming the “traffic from Malibu is impossible,” and Jimmy the mail clerk is accidentally hit by a golf cart. While Griffin’s assistant Bonnie Sherow (Cynthia Stevenson) comes to his aid, we see a post card among the mail that says, “I hate you!”

Bonnie also chastises her assistant, played by the lovely Gina Gershon, for “getting involved with writers.”

All of this is filmed with continuous tracking shots that trace different actors in different scenes that is all part of the same scene, with the usual Altman touch of overlapping dialogue, a busy ensemble of action that immediately tells the viewer exactly what and who they are watching, and what the pecking order of these people is. It is classic filmmaking.

Griffin, dressed to the nines, comes into his office and wants to know how Adam Simon, the writer who tried to pitch him, got on the lot. He is obviously concerned with security. He takes a meeting with Henry, who pitches The Post-Graduate, a marvelous idea (why never made makes no sense) for a sequel to The Graduate, with the same characters (Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross) all living in a “big old spooky house in Northern California somewhere,” with Ben and Elaine’s daughter (“new blood”), bringing to mind Julia Roberts.

Griffin also sees two female writers pitching “Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman,” and the same writer Jimmy mistook for Scorsese pitching a political thriller with the obligatory put down of Republicans.

Griffin then discusses with his secretary the post-cards that he has been receiving, which say things like, “I hate you!” and “I‘m going to kill you,” and “You never got back to me.” The secretary suggests it is coming from a writer, Grif asks who, and she says, “Take your pick.” He hears pitches all day, “25 words or less,” mostly described as one movie “meeting” another, all very formulaic, and for the most part he turns down the ideas, disappointing the writers.

Grif visits Levison’s office where gatekeeper Celia (Dina Merrill) tries to stop him, but he walks in to find the handsome young bank/studio exec going through photos of actresses, hoping to score with them during his trip to Los Angeles. Later Grif, who knows Celia knows where all the bodies are buried, tries to inquire whether the rumors about Larry Levy taking his job are true.

Bonnie arrives in Grif’s office and we see that they are dating. She is invited to a party of “power players” at his lawyer’s palatial home that night, and she can stay at his house afterward.

The lawyer, Dick Mellen, is played by the great Sidney Pollack. He has a marvelous house, presumably in Beverly Hills, and his guests are played by a coterie of  major Hollywood stars, as themselves. These include Harry Belafonte, Jeff Goldblum, Kathy Ireland, Marlie Matlin, Rod Steiger, Steve Allen, and others. Larry Levy (played by Peter Gallagher) “crashes” the party, causing Grif to ask Dick why he is there. Dick tells him the “rumors are true,” Levy will be coming on board at the studio, that he “gets in your face . . . because that’s what comers do,” but that Grif is a “comer too” and can “handle it.” He is not out but will have to co-exist with Levy. Grif tries to tell Dick about the post cards he is receiving at work but is unable to communicate to him the gravity of the situation in his mind.

At Grif’s house, he is in the hot tub with Bonnie who reads from a screenplay that is “hot” over at Fox. Then Grif tries to gauge the danger level of the post card sender by asking Bonnie about a hypothetical situation in which an account executive in an advertising agency is getting postcards from a potential client, and how long does it take before he should be considered dangerous.

The next day at work Griffin and Bonnie do lunch with some other film people, where he sees Larry Levy again, this time wooing Anjelica Huston and John Cusack. He takes a lunch in Malibu with Levison, where Burt Reynolds is being interviewed by Charles Champlin, the L.A. Times film correspondent. Grif sees Levy again. Levison confirms Levy will be coming on board. Grif tries to hardball him but Levison threatens to sue him with breach of contract if he does not work with Levy. Grif says he will get back to him.

Grif drives out to a location shoot where Scott Glenn, apparently playing himself (playing a film role), is in a scene on a telephone in a room with Lily Tomlin. There is some confusion with the dialogue, between Glenn speaking on the phone and Tomlin having to cut the scene because her dress gets caught in a chest-of-drawers, then Glenn complaining to her, which may have been a real life complaint that makes it into the final cut.

During a screening, another post-card is delivered to Grif reading, “In the name of all writers, I’m going to kill you!” It is signed, “Joe Gillis.” Grif calls out, “Does anybody know who Joe Gillis is?”

“He’s the writer who gets killed in Sunset Boulevard,” says Levison.

“Oh, that guy,” says Griff, flustered. “Last time he called himself Charles Foster Kane.” That is the name of Orson Welles’s character in Citizen Kane.

Back at the office Grif gets another threatening post card and asks Jimmy where it came from, because it was hand delivered and does not have a post mark. He sends Jimmy and his secretary out and commandeers the computer to research his writer meetings, arriving at the conclusion that the threatening writer is David Kahane, who had pitched him some months before but Grif never got back to him.

That night he drives to Kahane’s house. Standing outside the home with a mobile phone he calls him, and can see Kahane’s girlfriend, June Gudmundsdottier (Greta Scacchi), working on a painting. He has a conversation with her, in which she reveals that Kahane calls him “the dead man.” The conversation becomes personal, revolving around June’s art. Very meaningfully, it is obvious June is not part of Hollywood and has no desire to be, a key plot point, although done subtly.

Finally she tells Grif Kahane is at The Rialto in Pasadena, an art house, watching The Bicycle Thief.  Grif drives to the theatre and enters with about five minutes left to play in The Bicycle Thief. We see the end of the movie, at which point he gets up and approaches a man he thinks might be Kahane. He is not. Then he spots Kahane, played by the great Vincent D’Onofrio, who only five years earlier played an overweight Marine recruit in Full Metal Jacket. He has slimmed down and looks downright athletic, although he subsequently gained weight and never looked that good in all his acting appearances since.

Vincent D’Onofrio as David Kahane

Kahane knows who Grif is and is cold to him, but accepts his offer to “get a drink on the studio” at a Japanese karaoke joint where Grif will not “have any suck with the maitre de.”

There, they have some drinks until Kahane is intoxicated and begins to lambast Grif, calling him “a liar,” at which point Grif tells him he’s “over the line.” Grif tells Kahane he knows he is mad at him and wishes to make it up to him, offering him a deal on the Japan story Kahane pitched to him some many months prior, not having heard back. But Kahane gets up and leaves.

In the parking lot Kahane sees Grif and asks if the deal is still on the table. Grif tells him to stop by the studio in the morning, but Kahane says, “Who do I ask for? Larry Levy?”

Grif, thinking Kahane is the post card writer, asks what Levy has to do with this. Kahane tells him he has heard the rumors; Levy is in, Grif is out. Grif tells him to stop writing post cards, at which point Kahane exclaims, “I don’t write post cards, buddy. I write scripts.”

Then Kahane goes with his famed, “I can write,” speech, at which point he violently opens the car door and accidentally knocks Griffin backwards, falling into a ditch. Kahane, concerned that he has hurt Grif, which was not his intention, goes to check on him, but the act has enraged Grif, who pushes Kahane’s head into the cement several times, enough to knock him out cold, while yelling, “Keep it to yourself.” Temporarily insane with rage, Grif holds Kahane’s head in the water, then leaves it there. He gets up and leaves when he realizes what he has done, which is to have drowned Kahane.

Instead of helping him, he leaves his nose and mouth under water and takes his wallet and watch to make it look like a robbery, then smashes the window to get rid of prints.

The next day we see Larry Levy, now at the studio, being introduced to the team in a meeting presided over by Levison. Grif is late, and when he finally arrives Levy describes his philosophy, which is that film ideas can be created in-house instead of paying millions for screenplays and book rights. To prove it he has several people read from news headlines, including Bonnie reading about “Bond losses” in the business section, joking that, “I see Connerly as Bond.” When Levy says that if such a pitch were ignored by Oliver Stone it could have resulted in missing out on an exciting movie about finance. Bonnie says, “At least we’d have been spared sitting through Wall Street,” which Levy says made big money world wide.

During this, Grif sees an article in the paper describing his killing of Kahane the night before. Called on, he fails to respond, before finally making a pithy remark about Levy’s idea, saying that, “Why don’t we just remove all these writers and actors from the creative process?”

In his office, Grif is approached by Walter Stuckel, who tells him about Kahane’s killing, but Grif denies having seen him until Stuckey confronts him, saying the Pasadena Police Department has a full description of him. Grif admits that he went to Pasadena to hire Kahane for his Japan story, and when asked why he lied to Stuckel tells him that with studio politics being what they are, and with Larry Levy’s hiring, he wanted to avoid any further controversy.

Then a fax comes into Grif’s machine. “Surprise,” he has killed the wrong man. The stalker/post card writer is not only still alive, but knows what Grif has done.

Then Grif attends Kahane’s funeral, which is practically staged as a scene from one of his screenplays. Afterward he meets June. She is without guilt or remorse over Kahane’s death, has no desire to speak to his artsy Hollywood friends, and asks Grif to drive her home. Watching is a strange man - the stalker? - played by Lyle Lovett, the country singer.

At June’s house, the two flirt with each other. Grif tells her he thought David to have been, “A talent.”

“You really think so? I always thought him uniquely untalented.”

Grif tells her about his job, in which he must turn down the hopes and aspirations of aspiring writers, who in turn despise him, as Kahane did.

“They all want me to say yes,” he tells her. He says he takes 200 calls a day and if he takes less he is not doing his job. He describes what makes great film: sex, happy endings, tension, and that he had figured out what could make Kahane’s Japan story work, which was why he drove to Pasadena to see him. He says these writers feel that if only Griffin Mill approves their idea, “They’ll be spending Christmas on the slopes of Aspen with Jack Nicholson.”

But Kahane was not one of the 20 or so writers he approves in any given year, making Grif an enemy to him.

Two detectives from Pasadena, one played by Whoopi Goldberg as Susan Avery, come to the office for a cursory interview of Grif, who tells them he intended to hire Kahane and parked his car on the street, stating that if he had parked in the lot where Kahane died, maybe he would be dead.

“Somehow I think you’re too lucky for that,” Detective Avery remarks.

The conversation has a cat-and-mouse quality, with Grif referring to June as Kahane’s “wife,” only to be corrected with a smile. “Girlfriend."

Stuckel quickly ushers the cops out of the office.

Grif then receives another post card demanding he meet at a bar. Grif arrives only to be met by a writer/director named Tom Oakley (Richard Grant) and his agent, Andy Civella (a fabulous Dean Stockwell, who steals the scene). They are courting Andie MacDowell, playing herself. Grif has just been reprimanded for some past indiscretion by the actor Malcolm McDowell, but Andie says she is not related to him.

When she disengages herself from the conversation Civella tells Grif he is here to see them. Confused, Grif thinks Civella could be involved in the post card scenario, but they repair to a table by the pool where Oakley pitches his latest screenplay, about a district attorney “at a moral cross roads,” who after sending black criminals to the gas chamber decides his next target will be a wealthy white person. That person’s husband will be killed in a brake-tampering case, but it is a set-up, the husband still alive. Grif intercedes, telling them the husband’s wife falls in love with the D.A. “Of courses he does,” says Civella adding, “You’re good, didn’t I tell you he’s good.”

At the end, however, the innocent wife dies in the gas chamber, and “There isn’t a dry eye in the house,” says Oakley. He insists, “That’s reality.” He does not want a “pat Hollywood ending,” and insists the film have “no stars” like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis, although through body language Civella indicates he would love big names.

The waiter delivers a note to Grif telling him he was supposed to come alone, so his meeting with his stalker is off, but tells them their idea is “intriguing,” and will be considered.

Driving home, Grif receives a fax in his car urging him to look under his coat on the passenger side, revealing a rattle snake. He pulls the car to the side of the road and kills the snake. Then he drives to Junes’s house, where he reveals that he almost died this night, but “the only thing I could think of was you.”

He has a drink and she begins drawing him. She has already started before this from a photo she took of Grif after Kahane’s funeral. They have romantic feelings for each other, but she insists he take her “on a proper date.”

Later, leaving his house, Grif is stopped by the Lovett character, who identifies himself as Detective DeLongpre, demanding he follow him to the Pasadena Police Department, “To look at some pictures . . . Mug shots. You know, like in the movies."

He is questioned again by Detective Avery, who is more aggressive this time, suggesting a sexual relationship between he and June might have been a motive. When DeLongpre tells her he did not see them having sex she says, “See, you got away with it.”

This is Altman at his best. Each character speaks at once, and DeLongpre swats a fly right next to Grif, who says he would “hate to pick the wrong person” in a mug shot.

“That’s L.A.,” Detective Avery says. “This is Pasadena. We do not get the wrong person.” She is referring to Rodney King.

Incensed at Avery’s insinuations, Grif is rattled and begins spouting off a series of non sequiturs. Nervously he says, “Is this Iran . . . is June . . . cause for . . . a special code of conduct . . . for women,” or something like that, with the camera panned right in his face. The third degree.

All the detectives begin laughing at him, and Grif feels cornered. DeLongpre and the others start to chant, “One of us” from a movie he recently had seen.

Grif invites Oakley and Civella to the studio to pitch their idea, Habeas Corpus (produce the body) to he and Larry Levy. He explains to Bonnie that Levison will approve Oakley’s idea of “no stars,” his original motto being, “No stars. Just talent,” and that he will step in to make the correct changes to produce box office, making himself a hero. Instead, Levison thinks the “no stars” concept is bad, and finally insists there be some sex in the film to give it a little gusto.

Bonnie is sent off to New York to bid for the latest Tom Wolfe book, but she suspects something is wrong.

“What are you, afraid of success?” Grif says to her, adding that if she pulls off the deal, “They’ll have to make you vice-president.”

Stuckel tells Levison he may have a situation on their hands, not unlike Eddie O’Brien in D.O.A. Levison cares only that Stuckel keeps the studio out of it.

With Bonnie out of town, Grif takes June to a star-studded Hollywood awards banquet featuring among others Nick Nolte, Cher (with Larry Levy), Denzel Washington, Gary Busey and James Coburn. He makes the keynote speech and afterwards tells June he wants to take her to Mexico.

Stuckel finds out Grif is leaving the country, but Grif smoothly plays it off. Impressed, Stuckel tells him, “You really should run the studio.”

Tim Robbins at his peak as Griffin Mill

“Tell a friend,” replies Grif.

At the airport, however, Grif sees Detective DeLongpre and others, most likely there to arrest him. He tells June he has forgotten his passport and suggests an alternative, which is to drive to the desert.

“Is that the thing to do?” she asks.

“It’s a thing to do,” he replies.

During a luxuriant dinner in which only one other couple can be seen, Grif tells her the resort is “fully booked.”

“They’re hiding,” she says, just as they are hiding.

After dinner they have a wild, sweaty, mad lovemaking session in which Grif desperately feels the need to tell June he is responsible for Kahane’s death. Sensing this, not wanting to know and have this fantasy come to an end, she begs him not to tell her.

The next day in the mud baths, Grif gets a call from his lawyer, Dick Mellen. The look on June’s face tells all: she knows he is under suspicion for murder. She does not care that Grif may have killed her boyfriend; she only wants him off the hook to continue their relationship.

Dick tells Grif he is due in Pasadena that day to participate in a line-up. He tells him he has arranged for a criminal defense lawyer to meet him there, adding, “This is a tough one.”

At the police station, Detective Avery thanks him for cooperating. He is placed in a line-up with several other men, including Detective DeLongpre. The witness, a middle aged woman with glasses, is befuddled before convincingly stating that DeLongpre is the man she saw that night.

Afterward Grif’s lawyer, Gar Girard (Kevin Scannell), who is confined to a wheelchair, tells him, “I don’t know who got to that witness,” but despite the cops feeling he did it, he is off scot-free.

Back at work, Bonnie confronts Grif over taking a “June somebody” to a banquet with “several hundred of my best friends.” The absurdity of this statement will be demonstrated shortly. Grif’s wardrobe and hair style has changed. He is now, truly, The Player.

***

A year later studio execs are watching the end of Habeas Corpus. Oakley’s ending has been completely changed. We see the woman, played not by an unknown stage actor but by Julia Roberts, being prepped for the gas changer. Even in these dire circumstances, she looks good, wearing a skimpy dress. As the pellets drop and she begins to fade into unconsciousness, the phone rings: a reprieve. The D.A., played by Bruce Willis, bursts into the room, breaking the glass. The witnesses, who include Peter Falk and Susan Sarandon among others, run to avoid the gas. Willis saves Julia, carrying her in her arms.

“What took you so long?” she asks him.

“Traffic was a bitch,” he replies.

Typical pat Hollywood verbiage a la Die Hard.

Soaring Hollywood movie music plays. Then Bonnie asks Tom what happened to his movie: no stars, she dies in the end?

“They hated it in Pomona,” Oakley replies. “Now they love it.”

Andy Civella wants to know who “this person” is. Levy tries to mollify Bonnie, but she refuses to hear of it. Levy fires her.

“I’m going over your head, Larry,” she tells him.

She runs to the office of the studio head, who is now Griffin Mill, who has not merely survived but now runs the place. Stumbling in her high heels, she gets to the office where Celia tries to calm her down.

Celia goes in to see Grif, as carefree as a Sunday drive, with Stuckel shooting a mini-basketball at a hoop that announces, “Three points!” whenever the ball goes in. It was Grif’s idea from the start to let Oakley film his original downer, only to come in at the last minute and save the film with major script and actor changes; a happy ending with stars.

Celia informs him she supposes Levy fired Bonnie. He says that he cannot see her, he must get home early. He gets up and tells Stuckel to get his feet off his desk.

Outside Bonnie pleads with him but Grif is unfeeling, telling her as he gets in his expensive roadster and dons his racing glasses, “You’re a survivor. You’ll land on your feet.”

Bonnie is left broke, and crying. The one person with a sense of integrity has been chewed up and spit out by Hollywood, the moral of the story. Of the hundreds of her “best friends” that were at the banquet, none were there for her in her moment of need. It is Tinseltown to a capital Tee.

Driving through Century City with the top down, the winner in a town of winners and losers, Grif picks up a call from Levy. He is taking a pitch from a writer who is put on the speaker phone.

It is the post-card writer, Griffin’s stalker! Only now he says he has been busy writing a screenplay. The story is the same as the movie we have just seen, with Levy exhorting, “This is a winner, Griffin.”

Then the writer says he has an ending with the perfect twist. “Son of a bitch, he gets away with it.”

Grif tells Levy to get him off the speaker and asks him, “He gets away with it?”

“If the price is right, Grif.”

“You guarantee me that ending and you have a deal,” he tells him.

Grif drives home to his perfect house surrounded by flowers and a white picket fence where June, now his wife, waves at him. She is pregnant. Children’s music plays.

It is the opposite of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Grif is unperturbed by the crime he got away with.

The camera pans away to the same inspiring music as in Oakley’s re-shot movie.

This is Tim Robbins’s best performance. It is the best work of most of the actors in it, including Cynthia Stevenson, Brion James, Whoopi Goldberg, and others. It is Fred Ward’s best performance with the exception of The Right Stuff.

D’Onofrio and Dean Stockwell have been in many great films, but both are fabulous here. In D’Onofrio’s case, mainly because of his appearance, it stands out from his others. Sidney Pollack is at his usual understated best.

We see Gina Gershon perhaps for the first time. Peter Gallagher is fantastic. Willis, playing himself as an actor, despite about a minute of screen time, practically steals it.

Everything about The Player is superb.

Steven Travers is a former screenwriter who has authored over 30 books including Coppola’s Monster Film: The Making of Apocalypse Now. He is a USC graduate and attorney with a Ph.D who taught at USC and attended the UCLA Writers’ Program. He played professional baseball, served in the Army JAG corps in D.C., was in investment banking on Wall Street, worked in politics, lived in Europe, and was a sports agent before finding his calling as a writer. He has written for the San Francisco Examiner, L.A. Times, StreetZebra, Gentry magazine, Newsmax, Substack and MichaelSavage.com. He lives in California and has one daughter, Elizabeth. He can be reached at USCSTEVE1@aol.com or on Twitter @STWRITES.