TOLKIN, Michael L. 1950–

PERSONAL

Born October 17, 1950, in New York, NY; son of Mel (a television writer) and Edith (a film industry lawyer and studio executive; maiden name, Leibovitch) Tolkin; brother of Stephen Tolkin (a writer, director, and producer); married Wendy Mogel (an actress and psychologist). Education: Middlebury College, B.A., 1974. Religion: Jewish.

Addresses: Agent —David Lonner, William Morris Agency, 151 El Camino Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90212.

Career: Writer and director. Worked as a journalist for the Village Voice and the Los Angeles Times.

Member: Writers Guild of America.

Awards, Honors: Independent Spirit Award nominations, best first feature (with others) and best screenplay, both 1992, for The Rapture; New York Film Critics Circle Award, best picture, 1992, Academy Award nomination, Film Award, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and Screen Award, Writers Guild of America, all best adapted screenplay, Film Award nomination, best film (with others), British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Golden Globe Award nomination, best screenplay for a motion picture, Independent Spirit Award, best feature (with others), Independent Features Project West, Edgar Allan Poe Award, best screenplay, Mystery Writers of America, and London Critics Circle Film Award, screenwriter of the year, all 1993, all for The Player; Emmy Award nomination, outstanding individual achievement in writing for a miniseries or a special, and Humanitas Prize, public broadcasting/cable category, Human Family Educational and Cultural Institute, both (with others) 1995, for The Burning Season.

CREDITS

Film Work:

Associate producer, Gleaming the Cube (also known as A Brother's Justice and Skate or Die ), Twentieth Century–Fox, 1989.

Director, The Rapture, Fine Line, 1991.

Producer (with Nick Wechsler), The Player, Fine Line, 1992.

Director, The New Age, Wechsler Productions, 1994.

Film Appearances:

Eric Schecter, The Player, Fine Line, 1992.

Television Work; Series:

Story editor, Delta House, ABC, 1979.

Television Appearances; Specials:

Interviewee, Blocked: The Novelist's Experience in Hollywood, AMC, 2000.

RECORDINGS

Videos:

Changing Lanes: The Writer's Perspective, 2002.

WRITINGS

Screenplays:

Gossip, 1983.

Let's Go (also known as Let's Go, Pal ), Showscan Film Corp., 1985.

Gleaming the Cube (also known as A Brother's Justice and Skate or Die ), Twentieth Century–Fox, 1989.

The Rapture, Fine Line, 1991, published in The Player; The Rapture; The New Age: Three Screenplays, Grove Press, 1995.

(With Henry Dean) Deep Cover (also based on a story by Tolkin), New Line Cinema, 1992.

The Player (also based on the novel by Tolkin), Fine Line, 1992, published in The Player; The Rapture; The New Age: Three Screenplays, Grove Press, 1995.

The New Age, Wechsler Productions, 1994, published in The Player; The Rapture; The New Age: Three Screenplays, Grove Press, 1995.

(With Bruce Joel Rubin) Deep Impact, DreamWorks, 1998.

Domestic Disturbance, Paramount, 2001.

Changing Lanes, Paramount, 2002.

(With others) The Punisher, Columbia TriStar/Artisan Entertainment, 2004.

Also wrote It Looks Alive to Me; Cowboy Heaven; and Power of an Attorney.

Television Episodes:

(With brother, Stephen Tolkin) "Big Man on Campus," Delta House, ABC, 1979.

(With Matty Simmons) "Hoover and the Bomb," Delta House, ABC, 1979.

Television Writing; Other:

(With William Mastrosimone and Ron Hutchinson) The Burning Season (movie; also known as The Life and Death of Chico Mendes ), HBO, 1994.

The Player (pilot; also based on the novel by Tolkin), ABC, 1997.

Other:

The Player (novel), Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988.

Among the Dead (novel), Morrow, 1993.

The Player; The Rapture; The New Age: Three Screenplays, Grove Press, 1995.

Under Radar (novel), Atlantic Monthly Press, 2002.

Periodicals:

Contributor of articles to periodicals, including Film Comment and Voice Literary Supplement.

ADAPTATIONS

"Shut It Down," an episode of Taxi, broadcast by ABC in 1980, was based on a story by Tolkin and Mark Jacobson.

OTHER SOURCES

Periodicals:

Film Comment, September–October, 1994, pp. 54–55.

New Yorker, April 19, 1993, p. 34.

Vogue, June, 1988, p. 147.