Hampton Fancher

Hampton Fancher
Fancher at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con
Born Hampton Lansden Fancher
(1938-07-18) July 18, 1938
East Los Angeles, California, US
Occupation Screenwriter, producer, actor, director
Spouse(s)
  • Joann McNabb (1957–63; divorced)
  • Sue Lyon (1963–65; divorced)

Hampton Lansden Fancher (born July 18, 1938) is an American actor who became a producer and screenwriter in the late 1970s.

Life and career

Fancher was born to a Mexican-Danish mother[1] and an American father, a physician, in East Los Angeles, California.[2] At 15, he ran away to Spain to become a flamenco dancer and renamed himself "Mario Montejo". Following the breakup of his marriage to Joann McNabb, he was married to Sue Lyon from 1963 to 1965.[3]

In 1959, Fancher appeared in the episode "Misfits" of the ABC western television series, The Rebel. In the storyline, Fancher used the name "Bull" with Malcolm Cassell as Billy the Kid and Hal Stalmaster as "Skinny" plot to rob a bank so that they can live thereafter without working. The "Misfits" enlist the help of The Rebel (Nick Adams) in carrying out their doomed scheme.[4]

Fancher then played Deputy Lon Gillis in seven episodes of the ABC western, Black Saddle, with Peter Breck. He guest starred on other westerns, Have Gun, Will Travel, Tate, Stagecoach West, Outlaws, Maverick, Lawman, Temple Houston, Cheyenne (1961 episode "Incident at Dawson Flats"), and also Bonanza (1966 episode "A Dollar's Worth of Trouble").

Fancher appeared in two Troy Donahue films: 1961's Parrish and 1962's Rome Adventure and was cast as Larry Wilson in the 1963 episode "Little Richard" of the CBS anthology series, GE True, hosted by Jack Webb.[5] In 1965, he played the role of Hamp Fisher (a name very similar to his own), in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Silent Six." All in all, Fancher played roles in over fifty movies and television shows. During this time, he also had relationships with a variety of women, including Barbara Hershey and Teri Garr. Although he showed interest in screenwriting, it would take until 1977 for Fancher to transition fully into screenwriting. He continues to act occasionally. [6]

After trying to option Philip K. Dick's 1968 science fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in 1975, when the rights were not available, Fancher sent his friend Brian Kelly, a prospective film producer.[7] Dick agreed, and Fancher was brought on to write a screenplay before Kelly enlisted the support of producer Michael Deeley.[8] This made Fancher the executive producer, which led to disagreements with the eventual director Ridley Scott who then brought in David Peoples to continue reworking the script. Scott and Fancher had already clashed concerning the movie, as Scott felt the original script did not sufficiently explore the world of the movie, choosing instead to focus on the interior drama. Fancher's rewriting process was too slow for the production crew, which nicknamed him "Happen Faster".[9]The movie was ultimately filmed and released as Blade Runner (1982).[10]

Fancher wrote two films following Blade Runner. The Mighty Quinn (1989), starred Denzel Washington, and The Minus Man (1999), starred Owen Wilson. The latter he also directed.[11] More recently, he wrote the story and co-wrote, with Michael Green, a screenplay for Blade Runner 2049 (2017), a sequel to the 1982 film.

In the early 1980s, Fancher wrote and lived outside of Los Angeles in Topanga Canyon. Fancher appeared in a cameo role in the independent film Tonight at Noon (2009), directed by Michael Almereyda and starring Rutger Hauer.

Fancher provided voiceover commentary for The Criterion Collection edition DVD extras of the film noir adaptations of Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Killers", which included the 1946, 1956 and 1964 versions.

He currently resides in the Brooklyn Heights district of New York City. His life was the subject of Escapes, a documentary directed by Michael Almereyda and executive-produced by Wes Anderson.

Filmography as writer

References

  1. ↑ "Interview with Hampton Fancher, October 2017". Aesop.com. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  2. ↑ Gettingit.com: Life of a Hollywood Scribe Archived June 11, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ↑ The New York Times
  4. ↑ ""Misfits", The Rebel, November 29, 1959". Internet Movie Data Base. Retrieved March 18, 2013.
  5. ↑ "Hampton Fancher". Internet Movie Data Base. Retrieved March 18, 2013.
  6. ↑ Friend, Tad (21 August 2017). "Hampton Fancher on the Edge of Fame". The New Yorker. The New Yorker. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  7. ↑ Epstein, Sonia (29 September 2017). "Interview with Writer Hampton Fancher of Blade Runner". Sloan Science & Film.
  8. ↑ TURAN, KENNETH (September 13, 1992). "Blade Runner 2 : The Screenwriter Wrote Eight Drafts--and Then Was Replaced. On His First Day, The Director Turned The Set Upside Down. Harrison Ford Was Never So Miserable. Years Later, Someone Stumbled Over The Long-lost Original. Nothing About This Cult Classic Was Ever Simple". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved May 15, 2017.
  9. ↑ Schulman, Michael (14 September 2017). "The Battle for Blade Runner". Vanity Fair. Vanity Fair. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  10. ↑ The New York Times
  11. ↑ The New York Times
  • Hampton Fancher on IMDb
  • Salon.com – The flamenco man: Hampton Fancher
  • "Interview with Hampton Fancher".
  • "Hampton as guest star on Adam 12".
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