Marc Cushman

ABOUT
In the last twenty-five plus years, Marc Cushman has written for film, television, radio, and print. With over 500 credits, meaning more than 500 paying assignments.  Cushman sometimes even uses the name Cushman. More often not. 
 
Cushman: “The TV writer in me gains nothing by collecting radio credits.  And the comedy writer gets no help from using credits earned by my alter-ego, the dramatic writer. And the WGA card-carrying member is ashamed of the non-union writer - even though the non-union writer pays most of the bills. And there you have the reason for the pseudonyms.”
 
Perhaps my greatest accomplishment since arriving in Los Angeles in 1977, and while using my proper name, is that I have served four terms as President of the Alameda Writers Group, the friendliest and most unpretentious group of writers in town.  Some of my dearest friends, and dearest writing collaborators, have come to me through that group. At $60 a year (in dues), I certainly got my money’s worth.
 
CONTACT THE WRITER
Email Marc Cushman
 
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
My mentor was Ivan Goff, producer of “Mannix” in the mid 1970s,  who took me under his wing when I was eighteen, scribbled on every page of the script I was writing, then scribbled on every page of it again and again, until I finally got it almost right. Then he fixed me with an agent. And, to think, I was just some kid - a stranger - who had mailed in an unsolicited script. They don’t make TV producers like Ivan anymore.
 
CREDITS
STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION
DIAGNOSIS: MURDER
BEYOND BELIEF: FACT OR FICTION

Have you noticed that the prime-time shows I wrote for all seemed to have colons in their titles? 
 
ADDITIONAL CREDITS
A few of my odd-ball favorites. Good luck finding them.
 
PAL-201: A VEHICULAR ODYSSEY (1982)
A take-off on that space odyssey thing. I loved this. It aired in ‘82 and was released on home video (briefly) a few years later.
 
CHANNEL K series (1986-1989) (creator, producer, writer)
A series of half-hour comedies, comprised of short subjects, aired nationally by ON TV and SelecTV, with three volumes released on home video in the late ‘80s.  Included “Bachelor Pad,” a How-To-Score-Babes show; “Bikini Beat,” a slap in the face to “Babe Watch,” which hadn’t even hit the beach yet; “The Handy Dan Show,” very much like “Home Improvement,” also yet to be “created”; and “Too Hip,” about Siamese twin brothers who are joined at the hip, and who are cops. They also have opposite personalities. One is neat, the other a slob; one is Jewish, the other Italian. They explain it this way: “We had the same mother, but different fathers, and we were born seconds apart.” Oh yes, and then there was “Life Styles of the Poor and Unknown.” We had a ball doing those shows. But the pay sucked.   
 
THE MAGIC OF CHRISTMAS (1988) 
A rip-off of “How The Grinch Stole Christmas,” co-written with Steven McKay, who went on to write Steven Seagal action movies. Such an unlikely beginning - for him and for me. It was meant to be a holiday classic. It aired once and was dumped onto home video for a day or two after that.
 
HOW TO SURVIVE BEING ARRESTED IN L.A. (1992)
Produced fast and viciously after the Rodney King beating incident.  Friends would call every time it aired to say they had seen it, and were blown away that it ever made it onto TV. It was in that poor of taste.  Produced by Joel Doyle, who introduced me to the AWG.
 
MIDNIGHT CONFESSIONS (released 1995, but produced earlier)
This is the cheesiest thing my name has appeared on - so far. But it doesn’t seem to want to go away, and is currently still available on video and DVD. I only mention it because it made my list of credits on IMDb.com. Please don’t buy it. Watching this will give you the impression I trained as a screenwriter under Ed Wood!
 
TERESA’S TATTOO (1995)
An AWG member brought me on this, bless her soul and big blue eyes. I did a great page-one rewrite with her, out of which they used two sentences. Big cast, including Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Philips, with music (and acting) by Melissa Etheridge. Strange movie. Fond memories.
   
SKIN (FOX-TV series, produced by Warner Bros., 2003) (Creative Consultant). 
Ron Silver played a porno king. Only three of twelve scripts written, and nine episodes produced ever aired. You should have seen the ones that didn’t!

"I Spy: A History of the Groundbreaking Television Series"
(Book, to be published by McFarland & Company, Fall 2006)
 
BIO
But who is Marc Cushman...
 
When I was in the fourth grade, in a time before web pages, or writers groups, or even home computers, and maybe even in a time before you, I used to stare out of the classroom window and run film in my head.  I wrote, directed, edited, and scored the film, in real time - and it was good real time. It also was dramatic - and it had a three-act structure - but, because it was for TV, the three acts were broken into four acts - with four commercial breaks in-between.  And the whole process would take me one hour, usually during the time reserved for math.

On one of those days, while doing that one-hour thing that I did, my teacher, Mrs. Peck (who appeared very much as her name might imply), walked up and waited for me to take notice. Then she waited some more ... for a minute ... or two ... or three ... as my classmates snickered. And, when that didn’t pull me back into her reality, she slapped me on the top of the head with a ruler, which created a loud SNAP. This last bit of business finally woke me from my film-making spell and prompted me to refocus my eyes in the sixty-something-year-old’s direction.
 
“Marc Cushman,” Mrs. Peck said, her voice as sharp and unpleasant as the look on her sharp and unpleasant face, “you’ll never make a living by daydreaming!”
 
The fourth graders around me erupted into laughter. I had provided them with cheap entertainment. As a wanna-be writer, I should have been happy. But, of course, I was embarrassed. 
 
So I shrank in my chair and tried to keep my attention on the chalkboard. Mrs. Peck wrote my name on that board. Next to my name she added: “will never amount to anything.” Then she told me that, if I could last an entire hour without looking out the window, she’d allow me to come to the front of the class and erase what she had written.
 
That thing she wrote stayed on that chalk board for the remainder of the week. Then, Mr. Baker, the school custodian, who was a very kind man, came in over the weekend and wiped the board clean. 
 
I will never forget Mr. Baker for the kindness of his wipe. And I will never forget Mrs. Peck for the sharpness of her point. I left the classroom that day having taken on a mission. I would live to prove Mrs. Peck wrong.
 
I have been making money as a writer for over twenty-five years now.  I have been making a living as a writer, and a director, for over fifteen.