 Barry
Pollack's life
has been a merry-go-round where he continues to try to
catch that
brass ring that defines him as a writer. After graduating
from Penn State, he received his master's degree in film
from Stanford University and was then accepted as one
of the first writing-directing fellows at the new American
Film Institute. His opportunity to become a professional
writer came after he spent a summer traveling with carnivals,
researching a documentary film. He came to know nearly
every "freak" in the United States that summer--the
fat lady, the pin-cushion man, midgets, and giants. As
a result, Pollack had the perfect background for Roger
Corman, who hired him as casting director for a movie
called Freaks. That picture was never made, but after
showing the Cormans some of his writing, he was hired
to write the remake of John Huston's classic Asphalt
Jungle and turn it into a "black" film. That's how,
in 1972, Barry Pollack became the white "black exploitation" writer-director
of the MGM film Cool Breeze. Cool
Breeze did well at the
box office, but his next film, This Is a Hijack, he shamefully
admits is "one the top ten worst pictures in the
history of cinema." As the cliché goes, he
couldn't get arrested in Hollywood after that, as either
a director or a writer. And so, after mulling over his
prospects in the film industry, Pollack made a drastic
career change. He went to medical school, receiving his
M.D. from the University of Oklahoma. He began his practice
as an emergency physician in Los Angeles--and he resumed
writing. He's written prime-time television dramas, a
newspaper column, a non-fiction travel book, and several
unproduced screenplays. His writer's merry-go-round continues
to turn.
We think he's caught his brass ring with his first novel,
Forty-Eight X: The Lemuria Project.
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