82.1a

“Tracy Wynn Fighting to Get TV-Series Credit.” Article-interview by Aljean Harmetz. New York Times, 15 January. The article explains that Mailer’s version of the screenplay for The Executioner’s Song (79.13), was chosen by producer Larry Schiller over an earlier one by noted screenplay writer Tracy Wynn because, Schiller said, “When I read Norman’s screenplay, it was a new experience. He didn’t condense scenes and drop characters; it was a new entity. Tracy gave me a better script about events, but Norman gave me a better script about characters.” Mailer said that Wynn was talented, but “I thought no one could do ‘The Executioner’s Song’ as well as I could. Part of the problem is that it’s a very long book with 200 characters, and a job of digestion had to be done. I wrote the book, so I’d already done that digesting.” Wynn disagreed and asked that the Writers Guild of America give him the film credit, arguing that Mailer had read his script and then written his. See 82.1b.