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Screenwriter/Director/Executive Producer/Producer : Born September 15, 1945 -
Whittier, CA
Californian Ron Shelton toyed with a sculpting career before answering the
clarion call of the sports world. A basketball star in college, Shelton spent
five years as a baseball player in the Baltimore Orioles' farm system. He closed
out his diamond career with the Rochester Red Wings at age 25. After a series of
"joe jobs," Shelton decided he needed a bit more education to survive, and went
on to earn an MFA degree at Arizona State.
Still drifting from one dead-end job to another, Shelton began writing
screenplays, his favorite being a semi-autobiographical work about a minor
league catcher titled A Player to Be Named Later. Failing to make a sale,
Shelton signed on as a rewrite man and second-unit director for director Roger
Spottiswoode's Under Fire (1983). Impressed by the results, Spottiswoode gave
Shelton another second-unit assignment in the 1985 football comedy The Best of
Times, allowing Shelton to direct the climactic gridiron sequences himself.
Through the auspices of Spottiswoode, Shelton was finally able to sell A Player
to Be Named Later, which, under the title Bull Durham, was directed by Shelton
on a tiny budget in 1988. The film was a surprise box-office hit, making a major
star out of Kevin Costner and earning Shelton a best-screenplay Oscar
nomination.
helton's next project was Blaze (1990), a near-lampoon account of the romance
between Louisiana governor Earl Long(Paul Newman) and stripper Blaze Starr (Lola
Davidovich). The film failed to connect with the public, but Shelton's next
effort was an unadulterated hit: White Men Can't Jump (1992), an uproarious,
profanity-laden study of "street basketball" that scored with black and white
audiences alike. In 1994, ex-baseballer Shelton came full circle with Cobb, the
much awaited biopic of controversial baseball legend Ty Cobb (Tommy Lee Jones);
alas, by concentrating only on Cobb's vitriolic final years (and only
peripherally on his baseball activities), the film proved a letdown to both
Cobb's and Shelton's fans, ending up a box-office loser.
Credit:
movies2.nytimes.com
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