Posted on 08/09/2002 10:18:06 PM PDT by TheMole
NEW YORK (AP) - "Basic Instinct" screenwriter Joe Eszterhas has throat cancer after a lifetime of smoking, and is urging Hollywood to stop glamorizing cigarette use the way he says he did.
Eszterhas writes in an op-ed piece in Friday's New York Times that he was diagnosed with the disease 18 months ago. Much of his larynx is gone, he says, and he has difficulty speaking and being understood.
"Smoking was an integral part of many of my screenplays because I was a militant smoker. It was part of a bad boy image I'd cultivated for a long time — smoking, drinking, partying, rock 'n' roll," the 57-year-old writes.
"Smoking, I once believed, was every person's right. ... I don't think smoking is every person's right anymore. I think smoking should be as illegal as heroin."
Eszterhas says he has trouble forgiving himself for the rampant cigarette use in his films.
"I have been an accomplice to the murders of untold numbers of human beings. I am admitting this only because I have made a deal with God. Spare me, I said, and I will try to stop others from committing the same crimes I did."
The writer of other guilty-pleasure movies, including "Flashdance," "Sliver" and "Showgirls," says there are "1,000 better and more original ways to reveal a character's personality" than with cigarettes.
In 1992's "Basic Instinct," Eszterhas explains, smoking is part of the sexual subtext.
" Sharon Stone's character smokes; Michael Douglas' is trying to quit. She seduces him with literal and figurative smoke that she blows in his face," he says. "In the movie's most famous and controversial scene, she even has a cigarette in her hand."
Eszterhas says he has stopped smoking and drinking since his cancer was diagnosed, and now walks five miles a day and attends church on Sunday.
"My hands are bloody; so are Hollywood's. My cancer has caused me to attempt to cleanse mine," he writes. "I don't wish my fate upon anyone in Hollywood, but I beg that Hollywood stop imposing it upon millions of others."
Sorry Eszterhas, time to take your medicine like a man. You knew what you were doing when you did it. Stop with the cry-baby routine.
Do you think if he came down with Liver cancer he'd call for a ban on booze?
I have no sympathy, for this disgusting man, whatsoever.
And little Hollywood-centric lackeys like Drudge lap it up.
So another Liberal discovers too late that there are responsibilities behind the exercise of every right. YAWN. Wake me when there's real news.
No mercy for a traitor, huh????
Another "center of the universe" liberal (COTU)
His universe has suddenly been ripped so naturally, being the center of everyone's universe, he must now remind the rest of us.
Sad really.
Hiding behind his recent discovery of God.
Whatever happened to taking it like a man? i.e. I ****** up and now I am paying the consequences?
Wow. This guy is a Nazi. Straight out of Central Casting!
Interesting way that you put that. You make that sound as if there is something wrong in his saying that to people. Do you think that he was equally wrong when he was promoting the habit???? When he was saying 'its good for me, and I'm gonna show you that its good for you to'????
One wonders what he would say if he got in a motorcycle accident. That ain't pretty either, you know.
"I don't think smoking is every person's right anymore. I think smoking should be as illegal as heroin."
Esterhas made a deal with the devil. He forgot to read the codicil which points out that his soul is the property of Ole Stitch upon his demise. This liberal whining toad wants to take out a few individuals' liberty on the road named "Good Intentions." Please stay on the paved portion, Mr Esterhas.
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