by Rocky Wood
King At The Movies
King’s love affair with the silver screen began at a very early age. As a result of his great success as a best-selling author he has been able to pen a number of screenplays and meet and work with over a dozen significant directors. He has also taken the opportunity to show his acting skills, which are quite acceptable for the roles he has taken. Hardcore King fans delight in each of these roles. He was at his best as the inept Jordy Verrill in Creepshow. The movies and television episodes in which he has appeared are listed below.
Appearances
The movies and television episodes in which King has appeared are listed below.
Baseball (1994) as Himself (documentary series)
Chappelle’s Show (2003) as Himself (comedy series)
Creepshow (1982) as Jordy Verrill (segment, adaptation of Weeds and The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill; Joe King appears in the movie as Billy)
Creepshow 2 (1987) as Truck Driver (segment, The Hitch-Hiker)
Diary of the Dead (2007) as Newsreader (uncredited, voice only)
Fever Pitch aka The Perfect Catch (2005) as Himself (uncredited, he throws out a pitch)
Frasier (2000) as the Voice of Brian (Mary Christmas episode)
Golden Years (1991) as Bus Driver (original TV series written by King)
Kingdom Hospital (2004) as Johnny B. Good, lawyer on TV and AA sponsor (TV series written by King)
Knightriders (1981) as Hoagie Man (Tabitha King also appeared, as this character’s wife)
The Langoliers (1995) as Tom Holby (adaptation of the novella)
Maximum Overdrive (1986) Man at the Cashpoint (original script inspired by Trucks)
Pet Sematary (1989) as the Minister (adaptation of the novel)
Rose Red (2002) as the Pizza Delivery Man (original mini-series written by King)
The Shining (1997) as Gage Creed (mini-series adaptation of the novel, King’s character is named after the unlucky child in Pet Sematary)
The Simpsons (2000) as Himself (Insane Clown Poppy episode)
Sleepwalkers (1992) as Cemetery Caretaker (original script)
The Stand (1994) as Teddy Weizak (mini-series adaptation of the novel)
Stephen King’s Gotham Café (2005) as Mr. Ring (off camera, dollar baby adaptation)
Storm of the Century (1999) as TV Lawyer (original mini-series written by King)
Thinner (1996) as Dr. Bangor (adaptation of the novel)
Director
King’s sole directorial effort was 1986’s Maximum Overdrive.
Executive Producer
King has been listed as the Producer or Executive Producer for the following TV productions. Of these King also wrote the screenplay of all but Ellen Rimbauer, which is based on characters he created for Rose Red; and Riding the Bullet.
Desperation, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, Golden Years, Kingdom Hospital, Riding the Bullet, Rose Red, The Shining (mini-series), The Stand (mini-series) and Storm of the Century.
Credited as the Writer
As of early 2010 King’s work was already credited with the creation of an astounding 110 film or TV projects that had actually been released. These range from the first, Carrie (1976) to Secret Garden and The Mist, from “dollar babies” such as Frank Darabont’s Woman in the Room to blockbusters by leading directors such as Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. This last is but one of a number of stories that have been professionally adapted twice, the others include Apt Pupil (one production was not completed); The Dead Zone; Children of the Corn; Sorry, Right Number; Carrie; Firestarter; and ‘Salem’s Lot.
Adaptations of King are fast tracking to catch Charles Dickens (287), Edgar Allen Poe (221), Arthur Conan Doyle (215), Victor Hugo (142) and Mark Twain (119) and have left Nathaniel Hawthorne (44) in the dust.
49 Creepshows: The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide, p.25
50 The Stephen King Story, Chapter 12
51 Joseph Hillstrom King, writing as Joe Hill, is now an Award-winning novelist, short story and comic book/graphic novel horror author
Cujo – Unproduced Screenplay (Undated)
The material in this chapter was compiled with the assistance of a copy of King’s 1st draft screenplay. While the screenplay has never been published copies of it do circulate within the King community and there is also a copy in Box 2316 of the Special Collections Unit of the Raymond H. Fogler Library at the University of Maine, Orono. As this is a public box interested readers may access the screenplay there.
There is an interesting history to the final screenplay for the 1983 movie adaptation of King’s early novel Cujo. After King wrote the first draft, responsibility passed to Barbara Turner (credited as Lauren Currier), who wrote two revisions, and Don Carlos Dunaway, who rewrote it again. The Writer’s Guild of America denied King a writer’s credit after Turner lodged a protest. King told Cinefantastique, “I was in England at the time and I just didn’t have time to mess with it.” In the end, the movie version is only slightly different from this first draft screenplay.
Considering the dispute over the credit, the fact that novel is likely to be in print for decades to come and that the movie may be rented or purchased on DVD/video, there would appear to be no prospect of this screenplay ever being published.
As readers will be very familiar with the premise and storyline of Cujo the summary of King’s screenplay may be kept to the minimum. In the script a bite presages a fight to the death. On 16 June, the Camber’s dog Cujo, a good, gentle St Bernard was bitten by a rabid bat while chasing a rabbit. As the disease took hold Cujo slowly lost his mind.
On 12 July, having won $10,000 in the Maine State Lottery five days earlier, Charity Camber and her son Brett left Castle Rock, Maine by bus to visit relatives in Connecticut, leaving husband Joe with Cujo on their isolated property. Vic Trenton also left Castle Rock, on a business trip, still angry over his wife Donna’s recent affair with a local poet and furniture refinisher, Steve Kemp. Their son Tad had been suffering from night fears, including of a bat shaped monster in his closet, but his father had alleviated the terror by teaching Tad “monster words” that would fend off anything lurking in the dark.
Cujo, now suffering from rabies, attacked and killed one of Camber’s neighbors, Gary Pervier. Shortly after, he also killed Joe Camber. Unsuspecting, Donna Trenton drove her ailing blue Pinto to the garage on Joe Camber’s property to be repaired. On a day where the thermometer hit 87°F, Cujo trapped Donna and Tad in the car after the Pinto failed to restart.
The next day, while Vic Trenton was in New York, Cujo kept Donna and Tad trapped, with the thermometer hitting 100°F. Tad’s condition deteriorated and Donna also suffered from heat stress and sunburn. Steve Kemp trashed the Trenton’s house and then left Maine for New Hampshire. That evening, after Donna left the car and ventured into the Camber’s house, Cujo attacked her, savaging her leg and stomach. Concerned about his wife’s failure to answer the home phone, Vic contacted the Castle Rock police.
Shortly after midnight, policeman Roscoe Fisher went to the Trenton home, which he found vandalized. At 1.02am Sheriff George Bannerman called Vic Trenton in New York to tell him what had been found and Vic immediately left for Castle Rock. At dawn on the 14th Donna and Tad were still trapped in their car. Cujo killed another neighbor, egg farmer Alva Thornton. Tad suffered a convulsion and Donna had to revive him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. At 6.50am Vic Trenton arrived in Castle Rock where it rapidly became another very hot day, with the temperature already 85°F at 8.15am. Tad was in a very bad way and it appeared he would not survive. Donna left the car and fought Cujo, he savaged her again and she severely injured him with her tire iron, puncturing his right eye. Bannerman and Vic Trenton arrived at the Camber place and Bannerman shot Cujo dead. Somehow, Donna and Tad had survived.
In adapting his novel for the screen King made particularly important changes to the entire final confrontation between the antagonists, alon
g with a number of minor alterations. In the screenplay Tad Trenton survives (as he did in the actual movie) whereas in the book he dies. In the screenplay Bannerman kills Cujo but in the novel it is the other way around (as a result this “second” Bannerman has an alternative life in King’s fictional world). Cujo also killed Alva Thornton in the screenplay, a fate the farmer did not suffer in the original version.
This adaptation of King’s Maine Street Horror novel is quite faithful to the original (however, King is quoted in Jones’ Creepshows as saying, “I thought my script was pretty good. It was not as faithful to the book as the final result was”). As a result it is not surprising to find there are many links to King’s other fiction. Cujo himself is also mentioned in Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut, The Sun Dog, Pet Sematary, Needful Things, The Body and The Dark Half, usually in the context of Castle Rock.
Of course, Castle Rock is the setting for The Body, Cujo, Gramma, the Nightmares and Dreamscapes version of It Grows on You, The Man in the Black Suit, Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut, Needful Things, the Skeleton Crew version of Nona, Premium Harmony, The Sun Dog and Uncle Otto’s Truck. The town receives considerable mention in Bag of Bones, The Dark Half, The Dead Zone, Squad D and The Huffman Story; and is also mentioned in the Creepshow screenplay, Dreamcatcher, Gerald’s Game, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill, Riding the Bullet, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Under the Dome and the Complete and Uncut version of The Stand.
George Bannerman also appears in The Body (although it seems likely this is a different George Bannerman) and in The Dead Zone. Bannerman is also mentioned in Needful Things, The Dark Half and The Sun Dog.
Donna Trenton and Tad Trenton also appear in The Monster in the Closet (an excerpt from the novel published as a short story) and Needful Things; and are also referred to in The Sun Dog. Joe Camber is also mentioned in Needful Things, The Sun Dog, The Body, Gramma and Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut. Charity Camber is also mentioned in Needful Things and Castle Rock police officer Roscoe Fisher also appears in The Dead Zone. Gary Pervier is also mentioned in Needful Things and The Sun Dog.
Interestingly, the only other mention of Town Road #5, on which the Cambers and Gary Pervier live, is in Needful Things. For some reason King changed the name of the road from the novel’s Town Road #3. In another interesting road reference Donna’s erstwhile lover, Steve Kemp, lived and worked on Castle Rock’s Back Harlow Road (this is the only King work where this road is mentioned), a name that echoes Castle Rock’s neighboring town.
When King was originally approached to change the ending to make it more marketable to movie audiences by letting Tad Trenton live he agreed, despite having told the book’s publisher that such a change was “non-negotiable.”
The result was that King had to totally rewrite his original ending. In the novel Donna and Tad were trapped by Cujo until Bannerman visited the Camber property at Vic’s request (Vic was still away on business) but was attacked by Cujo and killed. Donna was able to beat the dog to death with a baseball bat. However, the ordeal was too much for Tad and he died before help could arrive. In the screenplay Vic returned to Castle Rock and went out to the Camber property with Bannerman, who shot Cujo, saving Tad’s life. This rewrite leaves George Bannerman alive. King also provides a new future for Bannerman (remembering there will soon be a new Sheriff to accommodate in the Maine Street Horror Reality in the person of Alan Pangborn). That November, the script tells us, Bannerman was elected to the Maine State Senate and was expected to run for Governor in 1988.
However, little Tad does not get off lightly. The screenplay tells us that the following August he was diagnosed with leukaemia but was later in remission. In other developments both Vic Trenton and the Municipality of Castle Rock sued Charity Camber but the suits were later dropped. Charity and her son Brett then moved to northwestern Maine. When Donna’s lover, Steve Kemp, left Castle Rock he had posted a poison pen letter to Vic Trenton and trashed the Trenton’s home. He was arrested for this crime in Twickenham, Massachusetts. The Trentons later dropped the charges and he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The novel is set in 1980 but no specific year is given for the events portrayed in the screenplay. It must be set before 1988, as Bannerman was elected to the State Senate the November following Cujo’s rampage and was expected to run for Governor in 1988. As is often the case in King screenplays he takes the opportunity in this one to tip a nod to close associates. Charity Camber mentions Chris Chesley in the script as someone she could get to go up to her house to check on Cujo and Joe. Chris Chesley and Stephen King self-published People, Places and Things in 1960, a publication covered elsewhere in this book. Chesley was a childhood, teenage (in Durham, Maine) and early adulthood friend of King’s.
In the script Vic Trenton asked his secretary to get Chris Spruce on the phone. Christopher Spruce is the brother of Tabitha King and Stephanie Leonard, King’s sister-in-law. Spruce both assisted in editing and published the Castle Rock newsletter and, for a period, ran WZON, a Bangor radio station King owns.
All in all, any King fan would have been happy with King’s screenplay for this movie. The actual movie, made on a budget of $5 million, took over $21 million at the box office, a substantial result in 1983. It starred E.T. actress Dee Wallace as Donna and www.imdb.com members rate it 5.7 out of a possible 10, which seems a little harsh. While it was a competent movie, and the final production is not enormously different from King’s script, perhaps King’s feel for the story and the characters would have ensured a more effective translation to the screen.
Dave’s Rag: Jumper and Rush Call (1959-60)
Jumper and Rush Call were originally published in a neighborhood newspaper, Dave’s Rag, put out by King’s older brother David. The first of the two was apparently Jumper, published over three parts in the Winter of 1959-60, technically making it the earliest published of King’s works (Part One was published in the December 29, 1959 issue).
The stories were re-published in the Book-of-the-Month Club’s collection of miscellaneous King writings, Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction On the Craft of Writing in 2000. This book is fairly easy to obtain from specialist King booksellers or the usual Internet sources. The stories were re-published as originally written, with only the spelling corrected.
While clearly juvenilia there are some sentences that are stunning when one considers a 12-year-old boy wrote them. Sophisticated thinking is evident and it is clear that King the best-selling author and quality writer was beginning to spread his wings.
Jumper
In the story a man threatens to jump off a building. Robert Steppes was a serial “jumper” and had escaped after being committed. Jeff Davis was called to talk him down after he threatened to jump from the 15th Floor of the Chrysler Building. Steppes was knocked from the ledge by a cable holding a hook the police used to try and catch him, but he grabbed the ledge and pulled himself back up. Davis decided to use unusual methods and was able to stop Steppes from jumping.
This as an America Under Siege story. It is effectively set in (or outside!) the Chrysler Building in New York City and no timeline is given. There are no links to other King works of fiction.
The story is written in the first person, from the perspective of Davis: “I’m a police counselor, or in simple terms, I try to determine what’s wrong with people who try do somebody else – or themselves – in.” Steppes was a compulsive jumper, having tried to jump off a building six times, always “escaping” (presumably from some institution to which he had been confined as well as, obviously, death). Steppes constantly calls Davis “Dr. Castle.” This may be an error by King but it is more likely that Steppes, in his insanity, believes Davis to be one of his therapists.
At the beginning of part three Steppes withdraws his threat. Now, Davis jumps out onto the ledge and walks toward Steppes, “…I was sure that I was right. Although theoretically, any man can take his own life, few men could really commit suicide, and Robert was not one of these men
.” It is worth remembering again that King was only 12 when he wrote that sentence! The story concludes with, “It was one of the most harrowing cases I’ve handled – ‘The Case of the Jumper That Could Not Jump.’”
Dave’s Rag
Dave’s Rag was a self-published local newspaper issued by King’s adopted older brother, David in the Durham, Maine area from January 1959 through at least the winter of 1959-1960.
A number of original copies of the newspaper must exist. One page, dated December 29, 1959, is reproduced in Secret Windows. Dave King told the fascinating story of Dave’s Rag to Stephen J. Spignesi, who reproduces the conversation in his The Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia. Following their interview, reproduced in the Growing Up with the Boogeyman chapter, Dave found a copy of one edition. Spignesi was given permission to reproduce this “Summer Special 1959” issue in full in the Encyclopedia. As neither of these copies include Jumper or Rush Call it would be interesting to discover how these came to light for Secret Windows. One can only presume they came from Stephen King’s personal collection.
