Taglines: Every day we have, is one more than we deserve.
Up Close and Personal movie storyline. Sally “Tally” Atwater (Michelle Pfeiffer) is an ambitious, aspiring news reporter, who is hired by Miami local news director Warren Justice (Robert Redford) when she sends in a homemade audition tape. He carefully guides her career to new heights, all the while becoming increasingly attracted to her. Tally soon rises through the ranks of network news to become successful, while Warren’s once-stellar career sinks into mediocrity.
Furthermore, Tally’s ascension takes her away from Warren when she is forced to relocate to Philadelphia. Tally struggles at her new post, in no small part due to the hostility of veteran reporter Marcia McGrath (Stockard Channing), who jealously protects her position as the top reporter. Warren turns up to inspire Tally, and the two partners begin a new career together. However, on a routine assignment in a Philadelphia prison, Tally and her cameraman are taken hostage in a prison riot and forced to endure hours of intense violence.
Tally covers the groundbreaking story from within the walls of the collapsing prison as Warren looks on from outside, guiding her through her first national broadcast. This incredible act of bravery leads to Tally’s eagerly anticipated advancement to a national network newscaster position and the continuation of the dynamic duo’s rise to fame – but shortly after, disaster strikes when Warren is killed during an assignment.
Up Close & Personal is a 1996 American romantic drama film directed by Jon Avnet, and starring Robert Redford as a news director and Michelle Pfeiffer as his protegée, with Stockard Channing, Joe Mantegna, and Kate Nelligan in supporting roles.
The screenplay began as an adaptation of Golden Girl: The Story of Jessica Savitch, a 1988 book by Alanna Nash that recounted the troubled life of American news anchor Jessica Savitch. The finished picture, however, was greatly altered by commercial decisions on the part of the producers, and bore little resemblance to Savitch’s biography.
Screenwriter John Gregory Dunne, having spent eight years working on the script with his wife Joan Didion, later wrote a book describing his difficult experience, titled Monster: Living Off the Big Screen. The film was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Original Song for “Because You Loved Me”, written by Diane Warren and performed by Céline Dion.
In the spring of 1988, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion began writing the script for a film entitled Golden Girl, based on Alanna Nash’s biography of the late NBC News anchor and reporter Jessica Savitch and financed by The Walt Disney Company. When the film was finally released in 1996, eight years later, it was known as Up Close & Personal and none of the more controversial details of Savitch’s life remained, including her alleged drug abuse problems that may have caused her to deliver an incoherent live news update on national television in early October 1983.
Other details omitted from the film included the suicide of Savitch’s second husband a few months after their wedding, and her alleged bisexuality, suicide attempts, abortion, and physical abuse by her longtime partner Ron Kershaw, a well-known news director who was the original model for the “Warren Justice” character. Savitch’s death at age 36 in an automobile accident (unrelated to drugs or alcohol) was also left out of the screenplay.
According to Dunne, who chronicled his experiences dealing with studio executives in his book Monster: Living Off the Big Screen, the majority of these changes were made in order to appeal to a broader mainstream market. Producer Scott Rudin was reported to have said, when asked by a weary Dunne what the film was supposed to be, “it’s about two movie stars.”
Up Close and Personal movie trailer.
Up Close and Personal (1996)
Directed by: Jon Avnet
Starring: Robert Redford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Stockard Channing, Joe Mantegna, Kate Nelligan, Glenn Plummer, James Rebhorn, Raymond Cruz, Dedee Pfeiffer, Yareli Arizmendi
Screenplay by: Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne
Production Design by: Jeremy Conway
Cinematography by: Karl Walter Lindenlaub
Film Editing by: Debra Neil-Fisher
Costume Design by: Albert Wolsky
Set Decoration by: Dorree Cooper
Art Direction by: Mark W. Mansbridge, Bruce Alan Miller
Music by: Thomas Newman
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language, some sensuality and depictions of violence.
Distributed by: Buena Vista Pictures
Release Date: March 1, 1996
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