Sunday, May 10, 2015

William Bast, R. I. P.

Hollywood Reporter: William Bast, an Emmy-nominated screenwriter for film and television who co-created The Colbys, a spinoff of ABC’s popular primetime soap Dynasty, has died. He was 84. . . .


For the big screen, Bast wrote Ray Harryhausen’s The Valley of Gwangi (1969) and adapted a Harold Robbins novel for The Betsy (1978), starring Laurence Olivier and Robert Duvall.

4 comments:

Todd Mason said...

Of course, most people remember the film of THE BETSY for, secondarily, one of Olivier's worst performances, and primarily for Kathleen Beller's nudity. A coincidence that the highest-profile gig she's gotten after the film, aside from some acclaim for her work in the film PROMISES IN THE DARK, was on DYNASTY?

Jeff Meyerson said...

That was certainly the most memorable thing about THE BETSY for me, Todd.

Jeff

Todd Mason said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Todd Mason said...

The novel, which I read when I was nine, was most memorable to me for the description of a certain man's semen, by one cheerful woman bedmate, as tasting like sweet heavy cream, which seemed improbable to me at the time.

On seeing the film on HBO in 1980, when I wasn't quite 16, Beller certainly concentrated my attention, as well (though Olivier giving the kind of performance the film deserved was hard to overlook).