Eric Lee Bergren (April 27, 1954
– July 14, 2016) was an American
screenwriter
A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based.
...
.
Early life and career
Bergren was born 1954 in
Pasadena, California
Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district.
I ...
. He studied theatre arts at the
University of Southern California.
Based on works of
Frederick Treves and
Ashley Montagu about
Joseph Merrick, Bergren wrote the script for the 1980 film ''
The Elephant Man'' together with director
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, visual artist and actor. A recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 2019, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, and the César Award for Be ...
and fellow screenwriter
Christopher De Vore. At the
53rd Academy Awards
The 53rd Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored 1980 in film, films released in 1980 and took place on March 31, 1981, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles beginning at ...
, Bergren, Lynch and De Vore were nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It was also nominated for the
Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay, the
BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay and the
Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Together with Christopher De Vore and
Nicholas Kazan, Bergren also wrote the script for ''
Frances'', a biopic about American actress and television host
Frances Farmer
Frances Elena Farmer (September 19, 1913August 1, 1970) was an American actress and television hostess. She appeared in over a dozen feature films over the course of her career, though she garnered notoriety for sensationalized accounts of her l ...
.
In 1988, he directed the short film ''...They Haven't Seen This...'', based on his own script.
Death
Bergren died on July 14, 2016, aged 62, in Pasadena due to complications from
stage 4 liver cancer
Liver cancer (also known as hepatic cancer, primary hepatic cancer, or primary hepatic malignancy) is cancer that starts in the liver. Liver cancer can be primary (starts in liver) or secondary (meaning cancer which has spread from elsewhere to th ...
, which had been diagnosed a few months earlier.
He was survived by his ex-wife, Sheila Condit, and two daughters Erin Condit-Bergren and Elysse Condit.
Filmography
* 1980: ''
The Elephant Man''
* 1982: ''
Frances''
* 1988: ''...They Haven't Seen This...'' (short)
* 1991: ''
The Dark Wind''
* 1998: ''Little Girl Fly Away'' (TV film)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bergren, Eric
1954 births
2016 deaths
20th-century American screenwriters
American male screenwriters
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from liver cancer
People from Pasadena, California
Screenwriters from California
20th-century American male writers