During the summer
of 1992 America was
transfi xed by the Fisher/
Buttafuoco murder
case in which 17 year-
old Amy Fisher was
accused of murdering
the wife of her 35 year-
old lover. Aspiring
screenwriter Alan Ball
was then working in
New York at trade
publicationAdweek.
Alan Ball (screenwriter):I was out getting lunch and I saw
somebody selling a comic book about the Amy Fisher and
Joey Buttafuoco scandal. On one side there was this pristine
virginal-looking Amy with leering disgusting lecherous Joey
Buttafuoco. But then you flipped it over and itâs exactly the
reverse: straightlaced suburban father Joey and then this
totally slutty seductive Amy. I remember thinking âWell
the truth lies somewhere in the middle.â It just sort of turned
into this idea in my head. So I started writing what became
American Beauty as a stage play but it didnât quite work. A few
years later I moved to the West Coast and started writing for
television and I hated it. I would go home at night and pour
all this rage that I had into [what was now] the screenplay.
As Ball continued to suffer working on sitcom Cybill
British theatre director Sam Mendes was gathering
attention for his Broadway production of Cabaret.
Ball:My agent said âThis is really interesting. If itâs okay with
you Iâm going to start telling people about how great it is but
then Iâm going to say that theyâre not on the list to read it.â
Which was really smart! Then he called me and told me that
Steven Spielberg was reading the script. I was like âThatâs a
waste of time...â But he called the next morning and said that
Steven loved it and they wanted to meet over at DreamWorks.
Sam Mendes (director):I got offered a lot of period films:
Henry James adaptations Jane Austen adaptations. I felt like
âNo.â The film that had the biggest influence on me in that era
was Fargo. The Coen brothers for me were it. My touchstone
movies at university had been mostly American movies or
American movies made by Europeans â Paris Texas being
a good example of that. That was where I wanted instinctively
to go even though I didnât really know why. My production of
Cabaret went to Broadway and it was a hit and a lot of people
Above:Lester
Burnham (Kevin
Spacey)a midlife
crisis in motion.
Right:Troubled
youths: Ricky Fitts
(Wesley Bentley)
Jane Burnham (Thora
Birch) and Angela
Hayes (Mena Suvari).
Below:Sam Mendes
directs husband and
wife team Carolyn
Burnham (Annette
Bening) and
Lester (Spacey).