Memoirs of a Hollywood Unknown, Book One

Memoirs of a Hollywood Unknown - Five Decades Writing, Producing and Surviving in Hollywood - Book One: Prime Time

Terrence McDonnell

330 pages

6x9 size

ISBN 9798905350009 paperback

ISBN 9798905350016 hardback

Everybody in Hollywood says they’re a writer. They’re working on a screenplay. They’ve got a star attached. Those people are everywhere. But real television writers who actually do the job every day and survive for five decades are rare indeed. Terrence McDonnell is one of them. In this engaging, inspiring, and page-turning personal memoir, he takes you from the innocent small-town streets of Ohio (where he battled Martians as a boy) to the indifferent boulevards of Tinseltown (where he wrote science fiction as an adult), and from his discouraging years of struggling to a rewarding lifelong career.

You’ll be there on his first professional writing assignment for Orson Welles, his first prime time pitch meeting with his partner Jim Carlson, and their first on-staff Story Editor job on the original Battlestar Galactica. You’ll also discover what that show’s Season Two was supposed to be. 

Memoirs of a Hollywood Unknown Book One is a passionate love letter to the entertainment industry, full of Hollywood history, hilarious backstage shenanigans, celebrity encounters (including Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Hatch, Dustin Hoffman, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, Robert Wagner, the evil censors at ABC, Wolfman Jack, Alan Funt, and many others), and unexpected anecdotes told here for the first time.

TERRENCE MCDONNELL distinctly remembers the first TV set his parents ever bought. During his lengthy career, he’s been honored with more than fifty distinguished accolades, including winning the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award and five Emmys.