As a child, J.F. Lawton had severe dyslexia, which made school life difficult. It took him many years of practice and hard work to manage his learning disability.[4]
When Lawton was still in elementary school, his father's novel, Willie Boy: A Desert Manhunt,[4] was made into a film starring Robert Redford.[5] During the making of Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, Harry would take J.F.to the set, exposing his son to the process of filmmaking. From that moment on, fascinated, Lawton determined that he would become a screenwriter. Always curious, Lawton would observe his surroundings and write about them, although due to his dyslexia, it would take him double the time to put his stories down on paper.[1]
In high school, Lawton continued to write short stories, plays, and scripts. After graduating from John W. North High School in Riverside, he enrolled at California State University in Long Beach, to study filmmaking.[1] There he wrote, directed, and edited two short films, The Artist and Renaissance.[2] The first was a futuristic thriller in which the main character kills his victims, takes their pictures, and puts them in his art exhibitions. The second, Renaissance, was a short horror film in which a sadistic sexual predator dominates and kills his victim every night, but revives her the next morning only to start the cycle all over again. Both shorts won awards on the college film festival circuit.[1]
Career
1980s
After college, Lawton moved to Los Angeles, settling near Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue, one of the areas of Los Angeles with the highest crime rate at the time.[6] Living among prostitutes, pimps, drug users and dealers, and homeless people; the setting gave Lawton a wide range of inspiration for his stories.[7] He wrote many screenplays while working at several post-production companies.[8]
After Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death, Lawton also wrote and directed Pizza Man, a political satire about a pizza delivery man investigating a comical government conspiracy.[14] Bill Maher also starred in the 1991 film Pizza Man, along with comedian Annabelle Gurwitch.[15] In both movies, he used the pseudonym J.D.Athens.[16]
Lawton was given an executive producer credit for his next original screenplay, Under Siege,[29] based on his million-dollar spec scriptDreadnought.[30] The idea came when Lawton, who had served time in the United States Coast Guard Reserve, read that the Navy was retiring the USS Missouri (BB-63). The film stars Steven Seagal as a disgraced Navy Seal working as a cook on a battleship. Seagal's character must face off against a psychopathic ex-CIA agent (Tommy Lee Jones), who leads a group of mercenaries on a takeover of the battleship on its final voyage, so he can steal its arsenal of nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles. A successful sequel followed: Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.
Lawton worked with radio host and media personality Howard Stern on the script for The Adventures of Fartman, a fictional superhero character created by Stern for The Howard Stern Show.[32] With two major studios willing to produce, the movie was put into hold due to a MPAA Film Rating System dispute, as Lawton and Stern felt the content of the film was better suited for a mature audience, and wanted an R-rating for the film instead of a PG-13 rating.[33] The film was put on hold, and Howard Stern included a five-page Fartman story in comics form in his 1995 book, Miss America, which was based on Lawton's script. The book reached number one on The New York Times Best Seller list within days of its release.[34]
For Columbia Pictures, Lawton co-wrote the 1994 film Blankman,[35] a film starring and produced by Damon Wayans. (Wayans' character is Darryl – a nerdy, comical ghetto superhero with a pure heart, who fights criminals in his own style.)[36]
Lawton went on to write and direct The Hunted (1995), a thriller set in Japan starring Christopher Lambert, John Lone, and Joan Chen.[37] Written and directed by Lawton,[38] the movie traces Paul Racine, a computer-chip executive from New York on one of his many business trips to Tokyo. Local authorities and a legendary ninja cult get involved in an electric chase[clarification needed] after a crime occurs in a hotel room.[39]The Hunted was released on February 25, 1995, and distributed by Universal Studios. The score, featuring music by the acclaimed Japanese taiko troupe Kodo,[40] was formally specified by Lawton.[citation needed]
In 1998 Lawton created and executive produced the Sony Pictures Entertainment syndicated show V.I.P. which ran until 2002.[43][44] The adventure series starred Pamela Anderson as Vallery Irons,[45] a small-town girl who comes to Southern California looking for a break, when she stumbles into the glamorous role of heading up a Beverly Hills bodyguard agency called Vallery Irons Protection.[46]
Lawton wrote and directed the 2008 film Jackson,[16][50] a comedy-drama-musical starring Barry Primus, Charlie Robinson, Steve Guttenberg, Debra Jo Rupp, and included performances by opera singers Ella Lee, Shawnette Sulker, Clamma Dale and others. The movie takes place on a single day involving two homeless men surviving on Los Angeles's Skid Row. Lawton wrote two songs for the movie, "Downtown Birthday" and "Love Cannot Be". Jackson was shot mainly in Downtown Los Angeles, except for one scene shot in Kentucky.
Personal life
Lawton has dyslexia and ADHD, and advocates for charities related to those issues. He is also a supporter of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). He has expressed concern for environmental issues, human rights, cancer and poverty.[51]
He is married to journalist, writer, and LGBT activist Paola Lawton.[51]
^ abc"J. F. Lawton". BBC News. Archived from the original on November 27, 2020. Retrieved December 21, 2019.
^Greenspan, Roger (December 19, 1969). "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
