Mentor of Unheard Stories

Garrison’s first draft was an attempt at an objective history. Sklar urged him to tell the story in first person, tracing his 180-degree turnaround from career military man and true believer to someone who became convinced that the CIA murdered President Kennedy. He helped Garrison reshape the book as “not a whodunnit, but a whydunnit.”

Soon afterward, Schap and Ray gave it to director Oliver Stone at the Havana Film Festival. Stone called three days later, saying he wanted to film it but was busy with Born on the Fourth of July; did they have a writer to recommend? Stone hired Sklar over the phone, telling him, “Don’t read any of those screenwriting books, just write from the heart. And I don’t care how long it is.”

Sklar and Stone’s models were Costa-Gavras’s Z and Rashomon, using witness reports and flashbacks to interweave past and present. Sklar’s first draft took a year and weighed in at over 500 pages. Stone cut and combined scenes, adding new ones. Sklar learned “a tremendous amount” from his co-author, who encouraged such liberties as resetting an office meeting with Jack Lemmon’s character to a racetrack, where he’s hung over, drinking coffee in the stands. “It gave you the milieu of this guy, a much deeper character,” says Sklar. “It’s not factually true, but it’s actually more true—the audience understands him better.”

The film came under attack even before it was shot, when a stolen script was leaked to the press. “Oliver enjoyed the fight—he stayed up late writing letters to editors,” Sklar recalls. “It was an adventure. It was insane.”

JFK was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including one for Best Adapted Screenplay. “It was a high-visibility film that caused a huge controversy. Oliver took a lot of the heat, and a lot of the credit. But it established me as a screenwriter. And ended my journalism career.” Sklar laughs. “I think those doors closed the minute JFK came out.”

He wrote an unproduced screenplay for Stone called Mediocracy, about a corporate media takeover, and continued to edit for Sheridan Square. But his health worsened, and he and Plant moved upstate so he could heal.