Stephen J. Cannell Interview

Writer and producer Stephen J. Cannell has worked in Hollywood for over 35 years on a gamut of memorable shows ranging from Rockford Files, to the The A-Team. He began his career by writing five hours a day, everyday after work. Eventually with the help of a cookie-making agent and the tenacity of a pit-bull, he made a name for himself as a creative and daring risk taker in the industry. He always surrounded himself with loyal and trustworthy people dedicated to similar goals and aspirations, and with their assistance created one of the largest and best-respected television studios of the 1980s and 1990s.

His lifelong battle with a learning disability never stood in the way of his creation of intense and complicated characters. Retired from the television-writing world, he focuses now on writing complex police procedurals that delve deep into the seedy Los Angeles crime underbelly. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Cannell uses his pen to create stories of deception, corruption, kidnappings, while also including character driven relationships of deep love and respect. His new novel, White Sister, revisits Cannell's hero Detective Shane Scully as he descends into the labyrinth of Los Angeles hip-hop royalty to investigate the disappearance of his wife and boss Alexa.

Fresh Fiction's Gwen Reyes sat down with Cannell recently while he was visiting Dallas Texas, to discuss his new novel, White Sister, his career in Hollywood, and the disability that has inspired him to make a difference.

Gwen: What made you want to start writing?

Stephen: I think it's in my DNA, I always wanted to be a writer, from the time I was a kid. Although I have learning disabilities--I have severe dyslexia. (Unintelligible) Despite all the learning difficulties, I had a sense that I could be a writer. I don't know what drove me to that; I enjoy the process of writing. I didn't often get good feedback from my work, because it was all misspelled. And, my teachers would look at the misspellings, and go "this kid isn't trying". But, I did feel really energized towards being a writer.

I went to the University of Oregon at Eugene, where I had a great writing instructor. He was the first teacher I ever had who looked passed all my sloppy handwriting and misspellings. He told me I had a gift. Not only did I have a gift, but he told me that I was one of two or three best students he had ever had. And, he had been teaching creative writing for years. It was a major thing for me to have gotten that feedback from him.

From there, I got married right out of college, and I just started writing every day. And, my wife has just put up with it for 42 years.

Gwen: Your background is in writing and producing television shows...

Stephen: Well, that's where I started. Because I really didn't think I could be a novelist. My disabilities were always in the back of my mind, writing a novel always seemed like such a big project. So a television script I thought I could master. So that's what I was writing in those earlier years. So I started to sell to television, then I started to create TV shows. I was under contract with Universal Studios. I created the <>Rockford Files, and Beretta, and Bah Bah Black Sheep--a show about WW2 fighter pilots--and four or five other shows, while I was with Universal.

I became a hot guy in the creation of television, so I decided what I should do is just form my own studio. In 1981, I formed the Cannell Studios, which was a completely independent studio. And it ended up being the third largest television studio in Hollywood. We had two thousand employees, with offices in three countries. We formed our own distribution company, started buying up TV stations through the place--it was huge! And it all came out of this guy who couldn't get out of the first grade.

Gwen: Well that is definitely the American Dream!

Stephen: But it was also because I got up every day, and wrote for 5 hours--Saturday and Sunday included. Unless I have an acting job that makes it too tough to write, because I need to be on a schedule. With acting, sometimes you're working at three in the morning, and you're always on someone else's schedule. But other than that I write every day.

Gwen: What do you prefer doing? TV or novels?

Stephen: I think I like the novels the best. It's a more complete process. My new book is a story about hip-hop and gangster rap, and I spent two months researching it. You know, getting into that world, and working with all the intricacies in that world. And I do that with pretty much every novel I write.

If there is some sort of circumstance or class situation that is really interesting to me, I will write about it. My last novel was about Homeland Security and the Anti-Terrorist Bureau, and I actually talked my way into the LAPD Anti-Terrorist Bureau. I tried to get a real look as to what was going on, so I could write about it from the inside and with as much accuracy as possible.

Gwen: So your last novel was also a murder mystery type of story?

Stephen: Yeah, I write about a Las Angeles cop named Shane Scully, who is a homicide detective in the LAPD, and his wife Alexa who runs the Detective Bureau. It's a really interesting relationship between these two because, she's his boss and he is not at all threatened by that. But at the same time, he doesn't always run his business in the ways that she would have him. She's not a uptight woman at all, she's really a cool lady, ya know? But he believes that she is the best police officer he knows, and she knows the ins and outs of the department better than anyone. So when he gets himself into jams, he always calls her for advice on how he should move forward. So, it's just a great relationship. <>White Sister focuses on that relationship quite a bit.

Gwen: Alexa is a strong female figure...

Stephen: I'm perceived by a lot of people as a "guy" writer, yet even my television shows were strongly female in many ways. I really like to write women, and I like good, strong women. I learned a long time ago that it's no fun unless the woman is as strong or stronger than the guy. And then you can really have fun with the relationship.

If you have strong women, really strong women, up against a strong male figure you can get a really good dynamic. When we did Rockford, I would write these women who were smarter than him and better than him, but we would often cast actresses who would flirt with Jim Garner because he was such a good looking guy. But what we needed them to do was just take him on!

So, I got really into writing, and I saw the advantage of writing women who are really strong and really good characters.

Gwen: Since I'm obsessed with television, what are some of your favorite shows?

Stephen: Well, I don't really watch as much as I used to. I like House, Law and Order: SVU, 24, Prison Break... I haven't watched much of Lost or <>Desperate Housewives, but I applaud their arrival onto the television scene because they shook up dramatic television. So we weren't just watching endless permutations of Friends, which is what networks tend to want to do. They get something that works and just think they can rubber stamp it, but the audience doesn't bite. But, if they get lucky with the casting, which is what they think is the major thing, or they will hire the graduates of an old TV show, but they only get one hit. I think that is really reverse engineering, instead of having a strong position on what to do.

I can guarantee you the guys who made House, didn't start out going 'now, let me think here, what is the audience wanting...' They said, 'let's write this guy who is bitter,' and fortunately, they got a network that was willing to put it on. But that's what makes it great: someone started with a vision of something different that they really wanted to do. And, I've had all my big hits begin that way. Where I started with a vision of something I wanted to do, often with no idea of would it work or not, but I just thought it would be fun.

The Rockford Files, was the same way. He would quit every time he got threatened, and back in '76 no one wanted that. One network absolutely refused to make it. So, you have to have some sort of idea of what you are trying to accomplish, and then go from there.

Gwen: Are there any plans to make your books into TV shows or movies?

Stephen: Yep! I wrote a book called King Con, which was my third novel. And, I sold that to Bruce Willis, and we're going to make a feature out of that hopefully. You can never say for sure. And, I have another one of my novels getting set up right now. As for the Shane Scully novels, I have some people interested. The problem you have with a series, especially if you do it with a studio, they are going to want the underlying rights--the rights to remake the characters. So if the movie is a hit, they will keep making them, and I can't turn around and sell them to someone else. What can happen, and often does happen, is these screen plays go into "development hell." Where they hire a writer, he miss does it, and then somebody else comes in and takes the miss executed screen plays and redoes it. Making it further off target, and then somewhere further down the road when it costs millions of dollars it gets shelved, and all six books in the series goes with it. And, I'm going to hopefully write six more after this. But, that's the problems you run into.