Steve Shagan

Steve Shagan was a writer and producer best known for his Oscar-nominated work on the screenplay Save the Tiger. The 1973 film starred Jack Lemmon as a businessman struggling to balance his personal and professional life.

Shagan received his second Oscar nomination (as well as a Golden Globe nom) three years later for penning the film Voyage of the Damned. Starring Faye Dunaway, Oskar Werner and Lee Grant, the film followed the story of the true and tragic 1939 voyage of the SS St. Louis, which carried hundreds of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.

In 1997, he was nominated for an Emmy Award, in the category of outstanding writing for a miniseries or special, for the telefilm Gotti. Starring Armand Assante, Gotti told the story of John Gotti, the head of the Gambino crime family and the most well-known mob boss in America.

Shagan also wrote the screenplays for the films Hustle, starring Burt Reynolds and Catherine Deneuve; Nightwing; The Formula, with George C. Scott and Marlon Brando; The Sicilian and Primal Fear, with Richard Gere, Laura Linney and Edward Norton. He also wrote the telefilms The House on Garibaldi Street and A Step Out of Line, starring Peter Falk.

Additionally, Shagan was a novelist. He wrote eight novels in all, including Hustle, Save the Tiger and The Formula.

He also worked regularly as a producer, starting in 1966 on the film Tarzan and the Valley of Gold. He was involved in four more films featuring the character as well as the 1960s television series Tarzan. He also worked as a producer on many of the features and telefilms he wrote, including A Step Out of Line and Sole Survivor.

Shagan got his start as a stagehand on the live CBS series Danger. He later moved to Hollywood in the late 1950s and worked as a publicist for John Wayne.

Shagan died November 30, 2015, in Los Angeles. He was 88.