To be a writer, one has to have imagination, patience, and self-discipline. To be an iconic writer whose works are talked about for decades takes a special gift for storytelling which takes years to develop and the fortune of being in the right place at the right time. Arkansas native James Bridges became one such legendary writer and filmmaker. His talents took him far from Paris, Arkansas, and made him one of the most influential screenwriters and directors of the 1970s and early 1980s. Bridges captured the hearts and imaginations of the public with movies such as The Paper Chase, The China Syndrome, and Urban Cowboy.
James Bridges was born in February 1936 in Little Rock. He grew up in the small town of Paris, just east of Fort Smith. He showed an interest in art and music and graduated from the local high school in 1954.
He enrolled at Arkansas State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas) in the fall of 1954. He spent two years there, heavily involved in the theater and the marching band. In 1956, he decided to pursue larger dreams and headed west. He enrolled at the University of California at Los Angeles where he tried to pick up work as an actor. He became part of the Professional Theater Group at UCLA, which was directed by legendary actor and stage director John Houseman. His first role was in a largely forgettable 1957 science fiction film Invasion of the Saucer Men and a small role in the film Johnny Trouble. He started to pick up work in small television roles, appearing in two episodes of Dragnet in 1957 and 1958 and the series Mackenzie’s Raiders. He later graduated from UCLA.
By the 1960s, he largely gave up acting in favor of writing and directing. He would find much more success with this change as well as more satisfaction as an artist. He found work writing television episodes for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, ultimately penning eighteen. The first episode was in 1963, “A Tangled Web,” starring Robert Redford as a thief. He adapted a Ray Bradbury short story for a 1964 episode “The Jar,” for which he earned an Emmy nomination. His 1965 episode, “An Unlocked Window,” earned him an award from the Mystery Writers of America and was reprised for the 1985 revival of the show.
His first screenplay for the silver screen was the 1966 western The Appaloosa, which starred Marlon Brando. Bridges wrote two other screenplays but came to national prominence in 1970 when he wrote and directed The Baby Maker, starring Barbara Hershey and Scott Glenn about a pregnant, single woman being convinced to let a couple adopt her baby. The film was his first as a director and was widely praised for his efforts.
Bridges continued to write. He wrote the screen adaptation for When Michael Calls for a 1972 ABC Movie of the Week, based on a novel by John Farris from 1967. He co-wrote Limbo, also premiering in 1972, about a group of women whose husbands were missing in action in Vietnam.
In 1973, he wrote and directed The Paper Chase, a tale of a Harvard Law School student as he struggled with a demanding professor, crushing studies, and a complicated love life. Bridges brought his old mentor Houseman in as the stern law professor and Timothy Bottoms as the law student. The movie earned three Academy Award nominations, including one for Bridges’s screenplay and a win for Houseman as Best Supporting Actor. Bridges adapted the movie into a television series in 1978, writing two episodes. The series lasted for one season on CBS before being revived in 1983 for three more seasons on cable.
He had cemented his reputation as one of the best in Hollywood. However, some of his most notable works would come in the next few years.
•••
Part II:
James Bridges had shown tremendous talent through the 1960s and into the early 1970s. He had a talent for creating dramatic stories and thrillers. The Arkansas native see the peak of his success in the 1970s and early 1980s.
After his success with his 1973 Academy Award-winning film The Paper Chase, the 37-year-old took a few years off. His next film, which he also wrote and directed, took place in Arkansas. September 30, 1955, starred Richard Thomas and Dennis Quaid as teenagers reacting to the news of James Dean’s death. The 1977 film was perhaps his most personal.
The China Syndrome was one of Bridges’s most dramatic projects. He wrote and directed the story about a cover-up of safety violations and an accident at a fictional California nuclear power plant. The title of the film referred to the idea of a potential reactor core meltdown so severe that it would sink all the way through the Earth to the other side of the world. Jane Fonda played a television reporter covering the story, along with Michael Douglas as her cameraman, and Jack Lemmon as a tormented power plant employee desperate to do the right thing.
The film’s premiere in 1979 happened to coincide with the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, one of the most serious nuclear accidents in American History. The two events completely changed the conversation about the future of nuclear power in the United States, souring public opinion on the nuclear industry. The film earned four Academy Award nominations, including nominations for Fonda and Lemmon and another nomination for the screenplay by Bridges and co-writers Mike Gray and T. S. Cook.
His next film also captured the public imagination but in a very different way. Urban Cowboy starred John Travolta as a refinery worker near Houston and Debra Winger as his wife. The story centered on their complicated relationship, one wrecked by jealousy and infidelity. Bridges directed the film which became one of the most popular films of 1980. Most of the story centered around Gilley’s, a real-life honky-tonk just outside Houston owned by country star Mickey Gilley. Scott Glenn and Barry Corbin also appeared in the film. Bridges co-wrote the film with Aaron Latham after reading a magazine article about Gilley’s.
While The China Syndrome did not even have a soundtrack, Urban Cowboy was the complete opposite. The soundtrack for the film went to the top of the charts and became an instant classic, impacting country music for most of the decade. The film became a pop culture phenomenon. In the process, Mickey Gilley’s club became the most famous honky-tonk in the world until it burned in an alleged arson in 1990.
He directed several other films in the 1980s. Mike’s Murder in 1984 reunited him with Winger; and Perfect in 1985 starred Travolta once again, but neither were very successful. The most notable film of this period, his last directorial effort, was Bright Lights, Big City in 1988, which starred Michael J. Fox as a writer struggling with drug addiction. The film also reunited him with John Houseman in a small role.
In 1990, he was diagnosed with cancer. But he had one more story to tell. He began working with Clint Eastwood on the screenplay White Hunter, Black Heart which starred Eastwood as a hunter in Africa. Though the film was unpopular with audiences, it was generally praised by critics.
His health never recovered. He died at a Los Angeles hospital in 1993 at the age of 57. In 1999, UCLA renamed one of its theaters after Bridges. He was buried in his hometown of Paris, leaving behind many close friends and millions of fans whose lives were impacted by his movies.
•••
Special Note: While the author of this feature has enjoyed many of the works of Mr. Bridges, he is, alas, not related.