As reported in the Fall '07 Bulletin
class notes, Ann
Goldstone Marcus '43
had just written and executive-produced her first feature
film, For Heaven's
Sake, starring Florence Henderson and released in
2006. At the same time she exec-produced indie film Channels,
featuring Ed Asner. Now both are available as DVDs at
Netflix, Best Buy, Hollywood Video, Amazon and Barnes and
Noble. If
you want a preview, you can read a plot
summary of For Heaven's Sake, see pictures,
or find information and watch a trailer.
 Ann's
history as a prolific and award-winning screenwriter is
well known to Western alums -- especially those who read
her lively autobiography, Whistling
Girl, published in 1998. After graduation, she went to
work for the
New York
Daily News as a
"copy boy'-- the first woman to do so. Soon she was a
reporter and her first bylined story led to a job with Life
magazine. She is probably most famous as co-creator and
head writer for the satirical soap, Mary
Hartman, Mary Hartman, which won an Emmy in 1976. Many
soaps followed, with Ann as creator, head writer or both;
many received Emmy and Writer's Guild of America (WGA)
nominations. Elected to the WGA board of directors
seven times, she was presented with the Morgan Cox Award
for distinguished service to the Guild in 2000. Ann gave Bulletin
readers a look "Inside the Writers Guild Strike"
in the Spring '08 issue. |
|
The
label "singer/songwriter," though accurate, does
not do justice to Anne
E. DeChant '87.
A four-time winner of Cleveland's Scene
Magazine's Best
Singer Songwriter award and a 2007 inductee into the
Cleveland Free Times
Magazine's
All Star Musician Category, she is writer, performer,
recording artist, storyteller, political activist --
simultaneously and non-stop, it seems. Anne says
Western had a lot to do with her becoming a writer -- "so
much reading and writing ... a paper a week!" She
recalls a defining moment in a 1985 seminar with
scholar/artist-in-residence Meridel LeSeuer, who --
pointing her finger at Anne -- said "Keep
writing!" She did, and began writing songs her junior
year. And peforming -- at community dinners, doing
concerts as projects, singing with a classmate's bands.
Her senior project was on vocal nodules, which she
suffered from until she took a semester off and consulted
a specialist in
England
who told her, "Don't speak for two weeks." She
didn't, then followed up with speech therapy, and was
cured. After graduating in 1988 (allowing for the semester
off), she went home to Cleveland, starting small --
coaching cross country and singing backup -- but making it
big, as a member of the group Odd Girl Out and as a
soloist. Since 1989, she has appeared in other parts of
the country, but mostly in her home state, giving
countless performances -- including many benefits -- in
every venue from coffeehouse and street fair to major
stage, radio and TV.
 She
has produced five albums, the most recent of which is Girls
and Airplanes, July 2007. Now her career has taken a
new turn: For the past seven months, Anne has been in
Nashville
--
Music
City
-- learning to write country music. To see how she's doing
(she keeps a journal) or to sample her music, check out
her website and myspace. |
