Roddy McDowall has inked an exclusive producing agreement with Foxboro Entertainment to serve as a producer and a production consultant to the company. Foxboro is a film, television and theater production and development company.
      "We are delighted to have Roddy on board," said Victor Simpkins, senior vp of Foxboro. "His extensive and specialized knowledge of film and television together with his close personal relationships with top talent are already being used well at Foxboro."
      McDowall executive produced "Overboard" starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell for MGM.
      McDowall's current projects for Foxboro include "Free Soul" for Turner Network Television. McDowall was familiar with the 1932 MGM film starring Norma Shearer, Lionel Barrymore and Clark Gable and thought it would lend itself very well to a remake.
      Writer Adam Greenman ("New Bedford Rape Case" and "A Face in the Mirror") is scripting the first draft of the teleplay.
      McDowall has also been instrumental in putting together the elements for the feature film "False Colors," based on Miriam Dorgenicht's novel of the same name that Gavin Lambert is writing.
      McDowall is currently shooting the four-hour ABC miniseries "An Inconvenient Woman," to be aired in May.
      The former child screen star is also noted as a still photographer, and has another picture book, "Double Exposure: Take Three," being prepared for publication in 1992.

      Foxboro Entertainment -- the venture of Broadway producer Nelle Nugent and former Anglia Television executive Victor Simpkins -- has unveiled a slate of publishing-derived film projects that includes a thriller with Anjelica Huston attached.
      The Huston project, "False Colors," a story by mystery novelist Miriam Borgenicht, is being produced by Roddy McDowall, who has signed with the company as producer-consultant. McDowall produced the recent ABC miniseries based on Dominick Dunne's "An Inconvenient Woman."
      "False Colors" is being scripted by Gavin Lambert, nominated for Academy Awards for his "Sons and Lovers" and "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden." The story concerns two stepsisters and the cover-up of their mother's murder.
      Foxboro's slate also includes a romantic comedy, a farce, a remake of an MGM classic and a teen-oriented drama, all being developed from best-selling novels for film and television adaptation.
      Co-principal Victor Simpkins said that book acquisitions are often overlooked because of the time involved in developing the projects.
      "Spec screeenplays drive the market now," he said. "Books remain an extremely fertile source of material, but it usually takes a lot of energy and time to find the screenplay within the book."
      "At the same time," he said "Foxboro is pursuing other avenues of acquiring material."
      In addition to "False Colors," Foxboro is developing "Street of the Five Moons," an international romantic intriguer based on a novel by Elizabeth Peters. Leigh Chapman ("Impulse") is scripting.
      "Howling Mad," a mass-market paperback by Ace Books, will be adapted as "Moonlight Becomes You," a romantic comedy with a new spin on the werewolf legend.
      Author Jim Polster will adapt his own adventure-comedy novel, "Guest in the Jungle," about a disgruntled Midwestern lawyer whose Amazon vacation turns dangerous.
      "On the Ropes" by Otto Salassi is an irreverent farce about an 11-year-old boy whose extended family of professonal wrestlers is called upon by his con man father to save the family homestead. Howard Rosenberg will direct.
      For television, Foxboro is readying Adam Greenman's teleplay of "A Free Soul," based on Adela Rogers St. John's 1929 novel "A Free Soul" that inspired MGM's 1932 Clark Gable release. The telefilm will air on TNT.
      Also for television, screenwriter Joe Stefano ("Psycho") is adapting Ronald Tierneh's suspense thriller "The Stone Veil."
      Simpkins formed Foxboro last year with Nugent to develop and produce projects for film, television and theater. Already completed is a two-hour telefilm, "Final Verdict," based on another St. John novel and starring Treat Williams and Glenn Ford. The telefilm will air late summer on TNT.
      As CEO for Anglia Television's American division, Simpkins supervised the syndicated series "Tales of the Unexpected" and "John Forsythe's World of Survival." Nugent's production credits include such Broadway hits-turned-feature films as "Elephant Man," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Amadeus," "Dracula" and "The Dresser."
      Previously, both partners produced several telefilms. Under the Foxboro Prods. banner, Nugent supervised "A Fighting Choice" for ABC and "Morning Maggie" for CBS.
      Simpkins, under his own Voyager Prods., recently produced the Corbin Bernsen starrer "Dead on the Money," a TNT telefilm to air in June.
      Foxboro Entertainment's other principals are financier Alan Fischer and New York attorney Stanley Arkin.

© The Hollywood Reporter



Corrections (Hollywood Reporter - Issue Date: May 1991)

Roddy McDowall starred in, but did not produce, the ABC miniseries "An Inconvenient Woman" (HR 5/21).