- David Chappe
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David Chappe (born November 8, 1947 in Brooklyn - May 13, 2002 in Los Angeles) was best known as the screenwriter who began the bidding wars of the late 1980s with his script Gale Force. David was also a novelist, photographer, screenwriting instructor, story editor, artist, and pianist.
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Early life
David Chappe was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn moving to Appleton, WI at age eight. A renaissance man, he competed as a concert pianist from age six to age 16, and led canoe trips in the Canadian wilderness of the Boundary Waters. He earned his BA in History & Political Science from Alfred University, and his Masters Degree in Fine Arts from the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY in 1978. There he learned to tell stories through photographic sequencing of images and later used that visual story sense in writing screenplays. While at VSW David printed dozens of small press publications on their Heidelberg Press, moving to Los Angeles in 1980 to work for a Small Press.
Film career
Surrounded by screenwriters in Venice, CA on Market Street he soon caught the bug and wrote close to twenty original screenplays and two novels. Prior to his screenwriting career David wrote for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and became known as the go-to script reader. In just five years he read and wrote coverage on over 5,000 screenplays becoming the Story Editor for White Eagle Enterprises, Sylvester Stallone's company. In 1989 he finished Gale Force which hit the film market and was snapped up by Dan Melnick who partnered to produce it with Carolco and actively aided Carolco in the bidding frenzy. Sylvester Stallone was to star. The script became one of those notoriously rewritten Hollywood scripts with pay or play deals flying right and left. Relative newcomer Renny Harlin was hired on to direct and associated himself with seven of the top Hollywood rewriters including Joe Eszterhas, see complete list below. After years of rewrites the plug was pulled two weeks before production and the entire creative team was moved over to Cliff Hanger.
After the sale of Gale Force he continued to write original screenplays, novels, became a re-writer for Hollywood action films, and wrote the production draft of Beowulf 1999.
Chappe died in 2002 after a four-year battle with angiosarcoma. He is survived by his mother Bess Chappe, his aunt Millie Kleineman, brother Marc Chappe and his wife Anne, nephew Durin Chappe, his wife June Stoddard, and daughters Chloe and Jessica Chappe.
Selected filmography
TV
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Disappearing Act, 1983
Film
- Beowulf, 1999
References
Sources, & external links
Categories:- 1947 births
- 2002 deaths
- American screenwriters
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