Class Note 1984
By the time you read our Class Notes, dear classmate, the Academy Awards will be over. As I write this column, I have no idea who won but I do know that true stories are big and I believe there are many in our class who deserve to have their lives made into movies. For example, our own Ric Lewis, has just been named Britain’s most powerful black person by “The Powerlist,” Britain’s most influential people of African and African Caribbean heritage. Lewis is the founding partner of Tristan Capital Partners, which happens to be the largest black-owned, black-run business in Britain. Lewis was the first in his family to attend college and, according to BuzzFeed, credits Dartmouth with changing his aspiration bubble. Ric’s movie could end there, but here’s where it tugs at the heartstrings. In 2015 he launched the Black Heart Foundation in Britain. Since then it has given scholarships to 22 young people to support their education at the institution of their choice, so far including Oxford, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics. Sounds like a winner to me!
Sports movies can do well at the box office which is why our own Anne Schwartz’s life should be on the big screen. Here’s the pitch: A Division I tennis star now in her 40s (okay, Hollywood actors always lie about their age), Anne won the Open Singles at the 2017 U.S. Professional Tennis Association (USPTA) Grass Court Championships and is currently a USPTA elite professional and is nationally ranked as a player with top-three finishes in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. And to add to the heart-warming moments of the film, Anne is the tennis pro at the Berkshire West Athletic Club in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where she helps youngsters discover a better life through tennis.
Political movies can be great Oscar bait. Consider this story: Our own Michael Donegan, longtime environmental lawyer at Orson Brusini in Providence, Rhode Island, just won his first election this past November, and he’s now a member of the town council in East Greenwich. A 2020 presidential run gets this movie made.
Stories set in remote locations (any place outside of N.Y.C. or L.A. is considered remote in Hollywood) do well. Consider our own Tina Farrenkopf, who is the executive director of the National Indian Youth Council in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she oversees the administration, programs, and strategic plan of the organization. Other key duties include fundraising, marketing, and community outreach. Her heartwarming story includes adopting two beautiful children.
So, if you’re reading this, Alix Madigan Yorkin (Academy Award-nominated producer of Winter’s Bone), take note! Or Peter Ellis, prolific TV editor (Community, Ray Donovan, The Goldbergs, to name a few), consider editing one of these great movie ideas for your next project. If only Peter Murphy was still at Disney so he could green-light one of our class stories. But wait…he is now the CEO (and founder) of Wentworth Capital LLC in Pasadena, California. Maybe he can fund our movies! And the winner goes to….
—Juliet Aires Giglio, 4915 Bentbrook Drive, Manlius, NY 13104; julietgiglio@gmail.com; Eric Grubman, 2 Fox Den Way, Woodbridge, CT 06525; (203) 710-7933; grubman@sbcglobal.net
