Steve Tesich
Encyclopedia
Stojan Steve Tesich was a Serbia
n-American
screenwriter, playwright and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
in 1979 for the movie Breaking Away
.
, Yugoslavia
(now Serbia
) on September 29, 1942, but immigrated to the USA in 1957 with his family when he was 14 years old. His father died in 1962.
His family settled in East Chicago, Indiana
. Tesich graduated from Indiana University
in 1965 with a BA in Russian, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi
Fraternity. He went on to do graduate work at Columbia University
, receiving an MA in Russian Literature in 1967. He also wrote his first plays while at Columbia University. After graduation, he worked as a Department of Welfare caseworker in Brooklyn, New York in 1968.
He had been an alternate rider in 1962 for the Phi Kappa Psi team in the Little 500 bicycle race. His teammate was Dave Blase, who rode 139 of 200 laps and was the victory rider crossing the finish line for his team. They subsequently developed a friendship. Dave Blase was the model for the main character in Tesich's award-winning screenplay Breaking Away
in 1979.
At a special screening of the 1985 cycling movie American Flyers starring Kevin Costner
and Rae Dawn Chong
in 1985, Tesich told the audience: “Many of you are better cyclists than I ever was, but I love this sport as much as anyone."
His play Division Street opened on Broadway in 1980 starring John Lithgow
and Keene Curtis
and was revived in 1987. The 1980 production of Division Street played at the Ambassador Theatre in New York City. The production opened on October 8, 1980 and closed after 21 performances. Frank Rich
reviewed the 1987 revival in the New York Times.
, Canada
on July 1, 1996.
screenplay in 1979, whose original working title was Bambino:
Steve Tesich also received a nomination in 1980 for a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay-Motion Picture. The movie Breaking Away
won the 1980 Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture-Musical/Comedy.
The screenplay to the movie was also published in book form as Breaking Away, 1979 (St. Martin's Original Screenplay Series). As a movie tie-in, a novelization of the screenplay was also published in 1979 by Warner Books in New York written by Joseph Howard based on the screenplay by Steve Tesich.
In 1973, Tesich won the Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Playwright for the play Baba Goya, which is also known under the title Nourish the Beast.
In 2005, the Serbian Ministry for diaspora
established the annual Stojan—Steve Tešić Award, to be awarded to the writers of Serbian origin that write in other languages.
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n-American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
screenwriter, playwright and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best script not based upon previously published material. Before 1940, there was an Academy Award for Best Story for writing. For 1940, it and the award in this article were separated into two awards. Beginning with the...
in 1979 for the movie Breaking Away
Breaking Away
Breaking Away is a 1979 American film. A coming of age story, it follows a group of four male teenagers in Bloomington, Indiana, who have recently graduated from high school. It stars Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern , Jackie Earle Haley, Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley...
.
Career
Steve Tesich was born as Stojan Tešić in UžiceUžice
Užice is a city and municipality in western Serbia, located at the banks of the Đetinja river. It is the administrative center of the Zlatibor District...
, Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
(now Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
) on September 29, 1942, but immigrated to the USA in 1957 with his family when he was 14 years old. His father died in 1962.
His family settled in East Chicago, Indiana
East Chicago, Indiana
East Chicago is a city in Lake County, Indiana. The population was 29,698 at the 2010 census.-Geography:East Chicago is located at ....
. Tesich graduated from Indiana University
Indiana University Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...
in 1965 with a BA in Russian, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi
Phi Kappa Psi
Phi Kappa Psi is an American collegiate social fraternity founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania on February 19, 1852. There are over a hundred chapters and colonies at accredited four year colleges and universities throughout the United States. More than 112,000 men have been...
Fraternity. He went on to do graduate work at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, receiving an MA in Russian Literature in 1967. He also wrote his first plays while at Columbia University. After graduation, he worked as a Department of Welfare caseworker in Brooklyn, New York in 1968.
He had been an alternate rider in 1962 for the Phi Kappa Psi team in the Little 500 bicycle race. His teammate was Dave Blase, who rode 139 of 200 laps and was the victory rider crossing the finish line for his team. They subsequently developed a friendship. Dave Blase was the model for the main character in Tesich's award-winning screenplay Breaking Away
Breaking Away
Breaking Away is a 1979 American film. A coming of age story, it follows a group of four male teenagers in Bloomington, Indiana, who have recently graduated from high school. It stars Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern , Jackie Earle Haley, Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley...
in 1979.
At a special screening of the 1985 cycling movie American Flyers starring Kevin Costner
Kevin Costner
Kevin Michael Costner is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has been nominated for three BAFTA Awards, won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J...
and Rae Dawn Chong
Rae Dawn Chong
Rae Dawn Chong is a Canadian-American actress.-Life and career:Chong was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the daughter of Maxine Sneed and Tommy Chong. She and her sister Robbi were raised by her grandmother, Tommy Chong's mother. Chong's father is of Chinese and Scottish-Irish ancestry and her...
in 1985, Tesich told the audience: “Many of you are better cyclists than I ever was, but I love this sport as much as anyone."
His play Division Street opened on Broadway in 1980 starring John Lithgow
John Lithgow
John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...
and Keene Curtis
Keene Curtis
Keene Holbrook Curtis was an American character actor.-Film career:Curtis made his film debut in the 1948 Orson Welles adaptation of Macbeth...
and was revived in 1987. The 1980 production of Division Street played at the Ambassador Theatre in New York City. The production opened on October 8, 1980 and closed after 21 performances. Frank Rich
Frank Rich
Frank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...
reviewed the 1987 revival in the New York Times.
Death
After achieving critical and box office success writing for both stage and screen in the 1970s and 1980s, he died following a heart attack at the age of 53 in Sydney, Nova ScotiaSydney, Nova Scotia
Sydney is a Canadian urban community in the province of Nova Scotia. It is situated on the east coast of Cape Breton Island and is administratively part of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
on July 1, 1996.
Posthumous
His novel Karoo was published posthumously in 1998. Arthur Miller described the novel: "Fascinating—a real satiric invention full of wise outrage.” The novel was a New York Times Notable Book for 1998. The novel also appeared in a German translation as Abspann.Honors and awards
Steve Tesich won the following awards for the Breaking AwayBreaking Away
Breaking Away is a 1979 American film. A coming of age story, it follows a group of four male teenagers in Bloomington, Indiana, who have recently graduated from high school. It stars Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern , Jackie Earle Haley, Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley...
screenplay in 1979, whose original working title was Bambino:
- National Society of Film Critics Award, Best Screenplay
- New York Film Critics Circle Award, Best Screenplay
- Oscar, Best Original Screenplay
- Writers Guild of America Award, Best-Written Comedy Written Directly for the Screen
- Screenwriter of the Year, ALFS Award from the London Critics Circle Film Awards, 1981
Steve Tesich also received a nomination in 1980 for a Golden Globe for Best Screenplay-Motion Picture. The movie Breaking Away
Breaking Away
Breaking Away is a 1979 American film. A coming of age story, it follows a group of four male teenagers in Bloomington, Indiana, who have recently graduated from high school. It stars Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern , Jackie Earle Haley, Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley...
won the 1980 Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture-Musical/Comedy.
The screenplay to the movie was also published in book form as Breaking Away, 1979 (St. Martin's Original Screenplay Series). As a movie tie-in, a novelization of the screenplay was also published in 1979 by Warner Books in New York written by Joseph Howard based on the screenplay by Steve Tesich.
In 1973, Tesich won the Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Playwright for the play Baba Goya, which is also known under the title Nourish the Beast.
In 2005, the Serbian Ministry for diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
established the annual Stojan—Steve Tešić Award, to be awarded to the writers of Serbian origin that write in other languages.
Screenplays
Steve Tesich wrote the screenplays to several major motion pictures- Breaking AwayBreaking AwayBreaking Away is a 1979 American film. A coming of age story, it follows a group of four male teenagers in Bloomington, Indiana, who have recently graduated from high school. It stars Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern , Jackie Earle Haley, Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley...
(1979), Academy Award winner, Best Original Screenplay, directed by Peter Yates, starring Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, Jackie Earle Haley, Barbara Barrie, Paul Dooley, and Hart Bochner - Eyewitness (1981), starring William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Christopher Plummer, James Woods, and Morgan Freeman
- Four FriendsFour Friends (film)Four Friends is a 1981 American drama film directed by Arthur Penn. The semi-autobiographical screenplay by Steve Tesich follows the path of the title characters from high school to college during the often turbulent 1960s and beyond.-Plot synopsis:...
(1981), directed by Arthur Penn, starring Craig Wasson, Jodi Thelen, Michael Huddleston, and Jim Metzler - The World According to GarpThe World According to GarpThe World According to Garp is John Irving's fourth novel. Published in 1978, the book was a bestseller for several years.A movie adaptation of the novel starring Robin Williams was released in 1982, with a screenplay written by Steve Tesich....
(1982), based on the John Irving novel, directed by George Roy Hill, starring Robin Williams, Glenn Close, Mary Beth Hurt, John Lithgow, Hume Cronyn, and Jessica Tandy - American Flyers (1985), starring Kevin Costner and Rae Dawn Chong
- EleniEleni (film)Eleni is the 1985 film adaptation of the memoir Eleni by Greek-American journalist Nicholas Gage. Directed by Peter Yates, the film stars John Malkovich, Kate Nelligan, Linda Hunt and Glenne Headly.- Synopsis :...
(1985), based on the Nicholas Gage book, directed by Peter Yates, starring John Malkovich, Kate Nelligan, and Linda Hunt
Plays
His plays included:- The Carpenters, 1970, first produced by the American Place Theatre, New York
- Lake of the Woods, 1971
- Nourish the Beast, also performed under the title Baba Goya, Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Playwright, 1973
- Gorky, 1975
- Passing Game, 1977
- Touching Bottom, 1978
- Division Street. opened on Broadway in 1980 starring John Lithgow and Keene Curtis, revived in 1987
- The Speed Of DarknessThe Speed of Darkness (play)The Speed of Darkness is a play written by Steve Tesich.-Productions:The play received its world premiere at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, with Bill Raymond as Joe, Stephen Lang as Lou, and Lee Guthrie as Anne....
, 1989 - Square One, 1990
- The Road, 1990
- Baptismal, 1990
- On the Open RoadOn the Open Road (play)On The Open Road is a play by the late Steve Tesich.It is a post-apocalyptic tale concerning the events after a "civil war" within the United States.Characters drag wheeled carts filled with meager possessions through a destroyed American wasteland....
, 1992 - Arts & Leisure, 1996
Novels
Steve Tesich's two novels were:- Summer Crossing (1982), was also published in a German translation as Ein letzter Sommer
- Karoo (1996, posthumously released 1998), paperback edition in 2004 with new introduction by E. L. Doctorow; German language version entitled Abspann
Collections
- Division Street & other plays. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1981. 171 pages. Contents: Division Street -- Baba Goya -- Lake of the Woods -- Passing Game.
Television Screenplays
Steve Tesich wrote screenplays for television:- Breaking Away, television series, 1980-1981, "The Cutter" and "La Strada" episodes. The series received nominations for two Primetime Emmys, for cinematography and for acting
- Apple Pie, television series, 1978
- Nourish the Beast, play for television, 1974, directed by Norman Lloyd, starring Eileen BrennanEileen BrennanEileen Brennan is an American actress of film, television, and theater. Brennan is best known for her role as Doreen Lewis in Private Benjamin for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She reprised the role in the TV adaption and won a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy...
as Baba Goya and John Randolph as Mario - The Carpenters, play for television, 1974, directed by Norman Lloyd, starring Vincent GardeniaVincent GardeniaVincent Gardenia was an Italian American stage, film, and television actor.-Early life:...
and Joseph Hardy
Quotations
- "Life, it seems, is not meaningless but, rather, so full of meaning that its meaning must be constantly murdered for the sake of cohesion and comprehension. For the sake of the storyline."
- "No birth certificate is issued when friendship is born. There is nothing tangible. There is just a feeling that your life is different and that your capacity to love and care has miraculously been enlarged with out any effort on your part. It's like having a tiny apartment and somebody moves in with you. But instead of becoming cramped and crowded, the space expands, and you discover rooms you never knew you had until your friend moved in with you."
External links
- Steve Tesich at The Internet Movie Database
- A photograph of Steve Tesich: http://www.srpska-mreza.com/authors/Tesich/photo/Steve.jpg
- New York Times obituary, July 2, 1996: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1D81339F931A35754C0A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
- A Few Moments with Steve Tesich by Dejan Stojanović