Overview

As a highly paid screenwriter, Terrell Tannen lived the classic Hollywood lifestyle: the Porsche, oversized house, dinners, and parties. By most measures, he could be called wildly successful. Yet . . . script after script, written for the bona fide elites of the movie business, floundered for all the usual and unusual Hollywood reasons.Tell the Story: A Hollywood Odyssey offers a window into what it feels like to constantly flirt with fame. At times resembling a darkly comic film, it's a very American tale, illustrative of the driving forces of hope and ambition in a place-Hollywood-where these desires burn like an inextinguishable neon sign, imploring and taunting at the same time. It also reminds us that, for all our dreams and ambitions, life has a way of writing its own script.Tell the Story is the story behind the story on screen, how it happens-and more often does not. A story for cinephiles, film enthusiasts, aspiring artists, romantics, wishers, dreamers . . . and all of us who just love an original tale.

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Reviews

""A touching and humorous true-life account of a storyteller's journey from a Georgia farm to a Hollywood mansion. Terrell Tannen's incidental journey is a clear and candid look at the joy, heartbreak, success, and failure that awaits all of us who arrive with ideas, desire, and a dream."" -Phillip Noyce, director of Rabbit Proof Fence and Clear and Present Danger ""A challenging account of one man trying to make a living in what seems to an outsider like a toxic and shallow world of inflated importance and radical uncertainty, driven by money, illusion, ego, and image. One comes away admiring the author's stamina, tenacity, and talent."" -Judson Mitcham, author of The Sweet Everlasting, Georgia Poet Laureate 2012-2019 ""Want to hang out on a tropical island with the legendary director John Huston? Have a long liquid lunch with the iconic writer Jim Harrison? Get a flattering phone call from Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack? In Tell the Story: A Hollywood Odyssey, Terrell Tannen recounts, in lively prose, how he managed to do all those things and more as he rose in the Tinseltown ranks from an unknown documentary filmmaker to a sought-after screenwriter and director. Tannen's romp through 80s and 90s Hollywood is as fun and eye-opening as it is cautionary, for though it provided him nice cars, a mansion in the hills, and dates with starlets, quirks of fate deprived him of that ultimate Hollywood payoff-fame. Still, Tannen tells his story with wit and self-deprecating humor as he takes readers deep inside the star-making machinery as only a Hollywood insider can. Everyone who loves the movies will love this book."" -Ken Wells, author of Swamped and Meely LaBauve. ""I'm generally a slow reader, but I devoured Tell the Story in one big gulp. When I was forced to put it aside for work, I found myself thinking about it. Terrell Tannen not only tells the story-many stories, expertly-but he sucks us into the very tapestry of life itself, from the frustrations and loneliness of youth to the nuts and bolts of working in Hollywood and the beguiling, funny, and sometimes heartbreaking trappings of near-fame. There were moments when I laughed, growled, and even gasped out loud. Tannen talks about the 'almosts' of Hollywood, but there's nothing 'almost' about this book-it's a full-on, full-tilt stunner."" -Joe Schreiber, New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Dead, Star Wars: Death Troopers, and Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

"""A touching and humorous true-life account of a storyteller's journey from a Georgia farm to a Hollywood mansion. Terrell Tannen's incidental journey is a clear and candid look at the joy, heartbreak, success, and failure that awaits all of us who arrive with ideas, desire, and a dream."" -Phillip Noyce, director of Rabbit Proof Fence and Clear and Present Danger ""A challenging account of one man trying to make a living in what seems to an outsider like a toxic and shallow world of inflated importance and radical uncertainty, driven by money, illusion, ego, and image. One comes away admiring the author's stamina, tenacity, and talent."" -Judson Mitcham, author of The Sweet Everlasting, Georgia Poet Laureate 2012-2019 ""Want to hang out on a tropical island with the legendary director John Huston? Have a long liquid lunch with the iconic writer Jim Harrison? Get a flattering phone call from Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack? In Tell the Story: A Hollywood Odyssey, Terrell Tannen recounts, in lively prose, how he managed to do all those things and more as he rose in the Tinseltown ranks from an unknown documentary filmmaker to a sought-after screenwriter and director. Tannen's romp through 80s and 90s Hollywood is as fun and eye-opening as it is cautionary, for though it provided him nice cars, a mansion in the hills, and dates with starlets, quirks of fate deprived him of that ultimate Hollywood payoff-fame. Still, Tannen tells his story with wit and self-deprecating humor as he takes readers deep inside the star-making machinery as only a Hollywood insider can. Everyone who loves the movies will love this book."" -Ken Wells, author of Swamped and Meely LaBauve. ""I'm generally a slow reader, but I devoured Tell the Story in one big gulp. When I was forced to put it aside for work, I found myself thinking about it. Terrell Tannen not only tells the story-many stories, expertly-but he sucks us into the very tapestry of life itself, from the frustrations and loneliness of youth to the nuts and bolts of working in Hollywood and the beguiling, funny, and sometimes heartbreaking trappings of near-fame. There were moments when I laughed, growled, and even gasped out loud. Tannen talks about the 'almosts' of Hollywood, but there's nothing 'almost' about this book-it's a full-on, full-tilt stunner."" -Joe Schreiber, New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Dead, Star Wars: Death Troopers, and Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick"

Author Information

Terrell Tannen has written, directed, and produced feature films, television, documentaries, and shorts for nearly fifty years. His credits include The Boogey Man, A Minor Miracle, Shadows in the Storm, Gospel Hill, Honor Bound, and dozens of commissioned screenwriting assignments around the world. His commentaries, stories, and essays have appeared in Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Washington Post, and The Lancet. His first memoir, When Blood Is Gone, was published in 2013. An excerpt, Finding John Huston, appeared in The New Yorker Culture Desk. Excerpts from Tell the Story: A Hollywood Odyssey have appeared in The Wall Street Journal and Literary Hub.

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