I began work in the theatre as a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, trained under Eva LeGallienne and Robert Lewis. When I began to write I was grounded in the works of the great dramatists of the past and I learned from all of them.
When I began to write novels they remained my mentors rather than Melville or Tolstoy or Twain, because film has put theatrical demands on the modern novel. more...