In 1971, after finishing the first draft of "North Dallas Forty," I took my wife and 11-year-old daughter and went to watch the shooting of the Dennis Hopper and Warren Oates film "Kid Blue" on location in Durango, Mexico. We drove from Dallas to Durango in a borrowed Winnebago van. We were on location from October of '71 to January of '72 with Dennis, Warren, Peter Boyle, Howard Hesseman, Janice Rule, Ben Johnson, and Jack Sterrett. James Frawley was the director, Marvin Schwartz produced and Bud Shrake had written the screenplay. It was with Bud and his wife and Gary Cartwright and his wife and son that we had traveled across Mexico in the MAD DOG PRODUCTIONS caravan -- our motto was "That which isn't a mystery is guesswork." It seems as true today as it did 30 years ago.

I wrote the second draft of "North Dallas Forty" on the set in the van as "movie people" constantly raged in and out of the van. I just kept typing away on my old Royal 440. Despite the lunacy and the laughter constantly blaring through the Winnebago, I wrote and wrote. Actors, extras, assistant directors, the director of photography, grips, soundmen, stuntmen, the producer and director were walking in and out -- talking, arguing, telling stories about other movies. Dennis Hopper -- at war with the world -- told stories of how he got the idea to make "The Last Movie" on this very same location and later how they came to shoot nearly forty hours of film for "The Last Movie" on location in Columbia after the success of "Easy Rider." Warren Oates told stories about working for Sam Peckinpaugh. Ben Johnson was telling tales of John Ford and John Wayne. I wrote as the others were talking and laughing, scheming and planning the war that is the making of a major motion picture. It was a great creative atmosphere and I would write around the clock for days.

It was a magical time. It was great training for the two and a half months I spent in Los Angeles writing the screenplay for "North Dallas Forty," as we shot the movie.

It was where I learned that first and foremost IT WASN'T ABOUT MAKING MOVIES IT WAS ABOUT MAKING MONEY -- just as the NFL was show business first and football second.

The movie makers -- the cast and crew -- have to be world class professionals because they operate under the same unique and intense pressures that ballplayers do. We were all performing artists. And most of us were lunatics. Hell, the Sixties were just getting to Durango. We brought them. The Mexicans supplied the chemicals AND the cops. The War on Drugs -- maybe it was -- either way I thought we won that round.

I came away with a great respect for the high caliber of professionalism that survives in an atmosphere of artistic madness and evil greed of hyper-capitalism that pervades the movie location just as it did the professional football field. That doesn't mean it is necessarily good or healthy but it certainly deserves respect -- sort of the same kind of respect you give your pet rattlesnake.

	Nick Nolte stars in "North Dallas Forty" as free spirit wide receiver Phil Elliot.

The NFL was not happy about the 1973 publication of "North Dallas Forty" and, partly because of their influence, it took six years before Paramount Pictures took the $10 million gamble to make the picture behind the urging of Nick Nolte. The studio hired Frank Yablans to produce and Ted Kotcheff to direct. The property had originally been purchased by Columbia, then skipped around from studio to studio with more than a score of screenwriters [a couple of them Academy Award winners] taking a crack at the script. Nick finally convinced Paramount with a rough draft he and [the late great] Hal Hauser had done. Then, as he was known to do, Nick disappeared.

Meanwhile, the NFL stuck a variety of sticks in the spokes trying to bring to project to a halt. The cleverest thing they did was agree to let Yablans and Kotcheff use the Houston Oilers practice field and the Astrodome for location shooting.

Ted Kotcheff was down in Houston casting professional football players for the film in November of '78 when Don Talbert, my exteammate and roommate with the Dallas Cowboys, called me and told me to tell me the movie was set to start shooting in Houston in February. I was living outside Austin in the hill country town of Wimberley and took a quick drive down to introduce myself to Kotcheff and warn him that in no way would the NFL live up to their promise.

Ted was a delightful, charming man who was certain that Yablans would handle the NFL. He had good reason to trust Yablans to take on the NFL because as I was to later learn Frank Yablans was the toughest, meanest, most terrifying 5'2" 105 man I have ever met. Yablans had already publically announced that "Peter Gent will have nothing to do with the making of the film." This is not unusual in Hollywood. When they buy novels, the last person they want around as they necessarily cut the novel to pieces to make it fit into a two hour time frame is the author. I know I cried like a baby as they chopped out subplots and characters that I loved like they were my children. I would cry for other reasons too.

I wished Ted good luck and drove back to Wimberley to await the release of the movie version of "North Dallas Forty" sometime in the distant future. I was pleased. Kotcheff was a great director and Nick Nolte was my favorite actor.

In February 1973, on the Friday night before principal photography was to begin in Houston on Monday, the Houston Oilers and the NFL pulled their permission for the film to be shot using the Oilers facilities. Yablans and Kotcheff had been there off and on for three months of preproduction. The Los Angeles crew was already on planes flying to Texas.

The NFL just made the biggest misjudgement of Nick Nolte's, Ted Kotcheff's, and, especially, producer Frank Yablans' desire to get paid his producer's fee and get his movie made.

Yes, it is about money first but once they've given you the money the worst thing you can do is NOT make the movie - the NFL had played it too close - Now it was all about making the movie. Nothing was more important than making the movie.

The NFL should have known that because despite their pettiness and greed on Sunday nothing is more important than winning the game.

Frank Yablans called me in Wimberley at midnight one Saturday night and asked me if I wouldn't enjoy coming to see my movie get made and I should fly out to Los Angeles on Sunday and be on the set Monday morning.

I knew what that meant. I had already heard about them losing Houston. This last minute call to the novelist could only mean they still didn't have a script.

I arrived at the Westwood Campus of UCLA where the first day's shooting was scheduled and met the assistant director Kalai Strode [Woody Strode's son] and as Kalai was leading me over to meet with Kotcheff and Yablans, I saw Nolte still wearing his fatigue jacket from "Who Will Stop The Rain" -- all of Nick's wardrobe at that time consisted of whatever he had worn in previous films like "The Deep." I slipped away from Kalai and introduced myself to Nick -- we went straight to his van where Fred Biletnikoff was already ensconced as Nick's receiving coach.

Nick explained that the shooting script had ballooned up to 400+ pages after he had disappeared and turned it over to the executives, Ted and Frank. So, before leaving we made a blood oath. I promised to stay and write only enough pages to get us through the next day or two of shooting if he could convince Ted not to fire me every time Frank started screaming and making me cry.

Nick kept his word and the madness began.

Using what I learned on NFL playing fields and on location with "Kid Blue," the first decision I made was to never write the whole script because as soon as I did they would fire me. So, each day I would go watch them shoot what I written the night before and then discussed with Ted Kotcheff from about 1-3 a.m. Then it was back to the set at 6 a.m. to see what additional changes happened on the set, wait on the call sheet to see who the producer and director wanted on the set the next day and where they were going to shoot i.e. locker room, the party scene at Howard Hawkes' house, the practice field. Then I would go home and figure out what scene I could write with those actors at that location and have the scene written by midnight for the studio car to pick up and take to Kotcheff. From 1 to 3 a.m., Ted would call and discuss the changes he would like to make. I would sleep from 3 to 5 a.m. and be on the set at 6 a.m.

I had agreed to talk Kotcheff and Yablans through the whole script. The second week I was there and at Yablans house surrounded by his Picassos, Manets, and Renoirs, I talked them through the movie - I played all the parts and laid out all the scenes and finished in two hours.

That was the only day I remember Yablans not screaming at me. He said "great go write the script." I nodded, smiled and left planning to do no such thing.

Instead, I called my agent Sterling Lord and told him to ask for

	Mac Davis plays fun-loving quarterback Seth Maxwell in "North Dallas Forty."

$100,000 and two gross points in the picture -- that made Yablans so crazy he stayed away from the set for two weeks. Well, first he told me if I showed up on the set he would have me arrested. But, I called him back, said we had to make up, and asked to talk to him. As I walked up to his home behind the Beverly Hills hotel, I decided to play a hunch and gamble. Frank was killing me. I had to get him to back off. If only for a few days. So, when Frank walked into the room, looking like a brand new $1000 bill, I grabbed him by the head with both hands and kissed him flush on the mouth.

After that, he stayed away from the set for a couple weeks.

I knew from my previous film experience that the cast and crew often broke up into little cliques and peer groups. Early on before I kissed him flush on the mouth - the act of a desperate writer - thank god Frank was a homophobe. He was tough enough on me - if he had expected to neck and abuse me everyday I never would have made it.

Anyway, Frank wanted me to write all the football scenes right away so he could fire all the players and not have to pay them. I told him I would get right on it and then went to John Matuzak, Louis Kelcher, Danny Bunz, Harold Jackson, and the other players and told them I was not going to write all their scenes until the movie was nearly through shooting. That meant they would get paid every day until their last scene. In return, I wanted them to be my pals -- having them around everyday brought a "special kind of craziness" to the set and it was worth every dime. It got up on the screen. And they all stayed my friends and tried to protect me from Frank. Around them I always felt safe -- except during night shoots then Yablans became especially terrifying. Part of it was the hard ghastly shadows of the Klieg lights but most of it was that Frank was one tough sonofabitch -- he got the movie made - Frank had all the right moves.

I had been working for a week on the party scene - we were gonna shoot two nights in Howard Hawkes' old house with the whole cast, 300 extras and the Teamsters on golden time. Frank had not been around.

It was just dusk, Ted and I were sitting on the couch in the living room going over the last tweaks of dialogue as the room was being lit. Suddenly, I heard familiar terrifying cursing. I looked up. Frank had slipped past us and was sitting across the room going through the blue pages and tearing them in half one by one.

Then, Frank stood and started screaming at me in a foul language that he spoke like an Elizabethan actor. Immediately, we were in the side room in a meeting. The clock was running and everybody was getting paid to stand around outside the room and listen while Frank called me and my mother and father names. I looked around the room at who was there besides Frank who took up most of the space with his 5"2' 105 lb frame; there was Ted, Jack Bernstein the Executive Producer, Frank Bauer, Co Producer and Unit Production, and me. I knew I was the only one in the room who was going to have to go type the scene over. If I could get out of the room and disappear, they would have to go with the scene as written. It was a brilliant scheme. I just had to get out of the room and run for it. So, as Frank inhaled, I raised my hand and asked to use the bathroom. Everyone in the room instantly pointed to a door just behind Frank. Slyly, I slipped into the bathroom, planning to run out the other door. Except there was no other door!!! Just a window. So, I opened the window and crawled out, as I checked over my shoulder to see what was behind me I looked into the eyes of the rest of the cast and crew lining up for a meal break.

Nobody seemed surprised. These people were professionals. They had seen other writers on other movies.

A 6'6" 215 lb ex pro football player crawling through the window to escape 5 foot Frank Yablans didn't seem strange at all. I hit the ground running and didn't stop 'til I was in the back of Mac Davis's van with a bottle of Jack Daniels.

I got drunk and the scene got shot as originally written and the rest is movie history.