| Birth Place: | Middletown, Orange County, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Writer |
| Alma Mater: | Tufts University |
| Period: | 1984–present |
| Genre: | Fiction, nonfiction, screenwriting |
John Blumenthal (born 1949) is an American novelist and screenwriter, known for co-writing the screenplays for the films Short Time and Blue Streak.
Blumenthal was born in Middletown, New York.[1] He attended Tufts University, graduating in 1971.[1] [2]
Blumenthal was hired as a fact-checker at Esquire magazine in the early 1970s, when he has 24.[3] His first editorial job, he served under the editor Harold Hayes.[3] In 1973, Nora Ephron, at the time an Esquire columnist, helped Blumenthal get a job at Playboy as an editor and writer.[3] In addition to Esquire[1] and Playboy,[4] Blumenthal has also written for Salon.[3]
Several of Blumenthal's books have been loosely based on his experiences in Hollywood, including the 1984 parody The Official Hollywood Handbook.[5] Also in 1984, Blumenthal and his friend and fellow Playboy editor Barry Golson wrote a period-piece romance novella spoof called Love's Reckless Rash, published by St. Martin's Press under the pen name Rosemary Cartwheel. In 2013, the duo wrote Passing Wind of Love, a novel-length expansion of Love's Reckless Rash.
Blumenthal wrote a pair of detective novel spoofs published by Simon & Schuster in 1985, both featuring private detective Mac Slade and set in modern-day Manhattan: The Tinseltown Murders and The Case of the Hardboiled Dicks.[6]
Blumenthal's 1988 nonfiction book Hollywood High is a history of the Los Angeles public high school founded in 1903 that was attended by numerous celebrities, including Lana Turner, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, John Ritter and Carol Burnett.[7]
In 1999, Blumenthal returned to literature with the comic novel What's Wrong With Dorfman?[1] His agent sent it to about 20 publishers; it was rejected by all of them, and in 2000 Blumenthal decided to self-publish. In 2002 St. Martin's Press bought the book, republishing it the following year.[1] The novel is about the midlife crisis of Hollywood screenwriter and hypochondriac Martin Dorfman, as he faces up to painful childhood memories and deals with a variety of physical ailments and professional setbacks.[8] [9] The Wall Street Journal called it "a funny and surprisingly moving story written at the intersection of shtick and angst",[8] and Publishers Weekly described it as "frequently hilarious and unexpectedly touching."[5] It was named one of January Magazines favorite books of the year for 2000.[10]
Blumenthal's 2004 comic novel Millard Fillmore, Mon Amour was also published by St. Martin's. The book's central character, Plato G. Fussell, obsesses over writing a 10-volume definitive biography of Millard Fillmore, the 13th President of the United States.[11] Fussell is a death-obsessed dysfunctional divorced wealthy loner who engages in a relationship with his psychoanalyst's wife after his first wife leaves him.[9] [12]
His 2011 novel Three and a Half Virgins is also about a man whose wife leaves him: newly single Jimmy Hendricks is a lonely, middle-aged man revisiting his past by looking up his old girlfriends.[13]
Blumenthal co-wrote the 1990 action comedy Short Time, directed by Gregg Champion and starring Dabney Coleman and Teri Garr,[14] [15] and the 1999 action comedy film Blue Streak, directed by Les Mayfield and starring Martin Lawrence.[16] [17] Blue Streak brought in over $117 million at the box office worldwide.[18]
Blumenthal is married with two daughters.[19]