Deborah Dean Davis

Deborah Dean Davis' journey took her in many directions: UCLA (student), Cosmopolitan Magazine (writer), AFI (director) and, early on, a solid career writing 40 hours of pop icon TV, including three of the first 13 episodes of Knight Rider. When Paramount Pictures purchased two of Davis' Cosmo articles to develop as feature films, Deborah Dean dove into the world of feature film writing. She was mentored by the likes of Peter Bogdanovitch (Better Late Than Forever), Ivan Reitman (Summer Camp Blues) and Steven Spielberg, who loved her pitch for The Little Rascals II so much he hired her and later requested Universal give her a two picture deal. After Davis' script Better Late Than Forever (with Meg Ryan set to star) sold for $1.2 million dollars, she began writing a steady stream of original screenplays. One of her favorite writing assignments came with a random call from Jennifer Gibgot, who asked, "Do you know anything about 7-year-old little girls?" Deborah handed the phone to her own 7-year-old little girl. That random business call morphed into It Takes Two, Ashley and Mary Kate Olsen's largest grossing feature film. Her most recent feature sale was another original screenplay, Keeping House, to Neal Moritz at Original Films. Her spec Daily Special was optioned by Kat Landsberg for Hot Flash Films. Her spec Quid Pro Quo, co-written by Margaret Oberman, is Black List material. Deborah Dean Davis also teaches at UCLA Extension Writers' Program and her chapter in Gotham books Cut to the Chase: Writing Feature Films with the Pros was singled out in the Kirkus Review as the chapter "not to be missed".