Burnett, Allison 1959(?)- (Allison James Burnett)

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1959, in NY; son of Allison Lee (a biology professor and poet) and Marie Grace Burnett; children. Education: Graduate of Northwestern University; attended Juilliard School. Hobbies and other interests: Antique photography, Romantic and Victorian poetry, televised sports, swap meets, old movies, and novels.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Los Angeles, CA. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, movie director, and movie producer. Studio screenwriter, 1990—; director of film Red Meat, 1997; coproducer of the film Stick It, 2006; appeared in the films Kiss & Tell, 1996, and My Date with Drew, 2004. Worked variously as an English tutor and legal proofreader at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Christopher: A Tale of Seduction, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2003.

The House Beautiful: A Novel of High Ideals, Low Morals, and Lower Rent, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Lodestar Quarterly.

SCREENPLAYS

Bloodfist III: Forced to Fight, Concorde/New Horizons, 1991.

Bleeding Hearts, City Films, 1994.

(And director) Red Meat, 1997.

Autumn in New York, MGM, 2000.

(And executive producer) Perfect Romance (television), Lifetime Original Movie, 2004.

If Only, 2004.

(With Michael Bortman) Resurrecting the Champ, Phoenix Pictures, 2007.

Feast of Love, Lakeshore Entertainment, 2007.

Untraceable, Lakeshore Entertainment, 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

Playwright, screenwriter, and novelist Allison Burnett struggled for ten years in New York City to make it as a writer before moving to Los Angeles in 1990, where he began working for different studios. In 1997 he wrote the screenplay for Red Meat, for which he also debuted as a director.

Burnett wrote the screenplay for the popular film Autumn in New York, starring Richard Gere and Winona Ryder, in which a wealthy womanizer in his late forties falls in love with a delicate, artistic twenty-two-year-old hatter with a fatal illness.

Burnett's well-received first novel, Christopher: A Tale of Seduction, is narrated by the middle-aged, gay, scholarly, and homely B.K. Troop, who sets out to seduce his young heterosexual neighbor Christopher Ireland, an aspiring novelist with an idealistic nature. The novel is set in New York City during the 1980s, the time and place of the author's own struggle to succeed as a writer. Dark-haired and handsome, Christopher hopes to start a new life after a bitter divorce, and Troop believes he can woo him into a gay love affair. After a year of playing the role of Christopher's new best friend and confidant, however, Troop realizes that a romance will never be. Yet his friendship and admiration for young Chris are real. The reader, through Troop's narration, follows Chris through a crush on a married waitress, involvement with a student he tutors, work on a political campaign, and weekends with a New Age guru. Chris also struggles to break free of his relationship with his overbearing psychiatrist mother and to write his first novel, which Troop offers to edit as his respect, friendship, and love for Chris solidify. Christopher thus becomes a tale of both unrequited love and self-discovery.

T.R. Salvadori, in a review for Library Journal, found Christopher to be a "bleak" tale with "bitter" humor and palpable isolation. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews wrote that the novel is "at times both acid-tinged and unbelievably sweet, a hopeless love's lament." Kristine Huntley, writing in Booklist, called it "both hilariously outlandish and utterly touching."

The character of B.K. Troop returns in Burnett's next novel, The House Beautiful: A Novel of High Ideals, Low Morals, and Lower Rent. This stand-alone sequel to Christopher: A Tale of Seduction, features B.K. inheriting a New York brownstone from his good friend Sasha Buchwitz. The novel follows B.K. as he turns the brownstone into a colony of eccentric artists. However, B.K. is most interested in the Midwest innocent named Adrian Malloy, who is not a poet as some think but is in reality carrying around notes by his late father concerning theories in physics. Once again B.K. sets out to seduce someone who is not really interested in him as a romantic partner. Stephen Sposato, writing in the Library Journal, noted that the author "skillfully handles multiple story lines, and he has a strong gift for wit." A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote that "the true joy is Troop's champagne-giddy language and his besotted love for his houseful of bohemians."

Commenting on his career for the Slam Dance Film Festival Web site, Burnett wrote that he believes hard work and quality writing led to his breakthrough as a screenwriter in Los Angeles in the 1990s. Speaking of the financial necessity to continue writing studio screenplays while also focusing on his own creative work, he added: "If I can maintain the balance till the day I die, I will count myself among the blessed."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Advocate, July 20, 2004, "Coming Out … as Straight" (profile of author), p. 24; November 7, 2006, review of The House Beautiful: A Novel of High Ideals, Low Morals, and Lower Rent, p. 59.

Booklist, April 1, 2003, Kristine Huntley, review of Christopher: A Tale of Seduction, p. 1375.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2003, review of Christopher, p. 252; October 15, 2006, review of The House Beautiful, p. 1031.

Library Journal, April 1, 2003, T.R. Salvadori, review of Christopher, p. 126; November 15, 2006, Stephen Sposato, review of The House Beautiful, p. 54.

Publishers Weekly, September 4, 2006, review of The House Beautiful, p. 40.

Spectator (London, England), June 15, 2001, Mark Steyn, review of Autumn in New York, p. 50.

ONLINE

Allison Burnett Home Page,http://www.allisonburnett.com (May 29, 2007).

Allison Burnett My Space Web Page,http://www.myspace.com/allisonburnett (May 29, 2007).

Internet Movie Database,http://www.imdb.com/ (October 24, 2003), information on author's film work.

MSN Entertainment,http://entertainment.msn.com/ (October 24, 2003), "Allison Burnett."

Slam Dance Film Festival,http://www.slamdance.com/ (October 24, 2003), "Red Meat Writer/Director Allison Burnett on His Career."

Washington Blade,http://www.washblade.com/ (October 20, 2006), Katherine Volin, "Going Gay Again: Gay Straight Author Writes another Novel with a Gay Male Voice."