'Confidential' helmer returns to life of crime

Hanson

Curtis Hanson, who directed, co-wrote and produced "L.A. Confidential," is taking a shot at another flinty cop thriller.

Hanson has purchased the film rights to a series of novels by cult crime writer Charles Willeford.

Willeford, who died in 1987, is the godfather of gritty and comically grotesque South Florida crime fiction – a genre that's given rise to boatloads of bestsellers by Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry and James W. Hall.

A former hobo who spent 20 years in the armed forces, receiving a Purple Heart as a tank commander in the Battle of the Bulge, Willeford never achieved major acclaim, watching his work drift in and out of print in his lifetime.

Willeford wrote "The Cockfighter," which became Monte Hellman's 1974 grindhouse classic starring Warren Oates as a veteran fighter traveling the dusty small-town circuits of the rural South.

He realized his greatest success with the series of novels Hanson has optioned, which center on the character Hoke Moseley, a battered Miami police detective who smokes Kools and drives a 1973 Pontiac Le Mans.

Hanson now holds rights to "New Hope for the Dead," "Sideswipe," "The Way We Die Now" and "The Shark Infested Custard."

The auteur, repped by UTA, may also seek remake rights to "Miami Blues," the only Moseley novel that became a feature film -- the 1990 George Armitage pic with thesp Fred Ward playing the series gumshoe.

Hanson, who's known for high-profile adaptations of literary material like the Michael Chabon novel, "Wonder Boys," is developing the Willeford novels through his shingle, Deuce Three Prods., with producing partner Carol Fenelon.

Hanson, who's in the midst of post on his latest feature, Universal's Eminem project, "8 Mile," has also served as a producer of these pics and was involved in the day-to-day process, from pre-production to post.

The Willeford books are not yet set up at a studio. Hanson tends to develop projects on his own before shopping them around town.

POST-WAR PULP CRIME WRITERS like Jim Thompson and Chester Himes are gradually being rediscovered by Hollywood, and the Hanson deal could help spearhead a full-blown Willeford revival.

Various small presses have been leading the charge with deluxe editions of his books. San Francisco-based publisher RE/Search even issued his novels "Wild Wives" and "The High Priest of California" in a retro-style, photo-illustrated, "two for one" format.

In the tradition of many unheralded American crime writers, Willeford has a large overseas following. His books have been published in nearly a dozen languages.

"We've even sold him in Russia," said Jim Trupin of the JET Literary Associates, which reps the Willeford estate. "We're still waiting for that payment."

In the meantime, several indie directors are exploiting the Willeford backlist.

Robinson Devor's adaptation of Willeford's novel, "The Woman Chaser," won the audience award at the 2000 South by Southwest Film Fest.

And filmmaker Mark Bailey, who has done work on various HBO docus, has just optioned another Willeford novel, "The Burnt Orange Heresy." It's the story of a psychotic and murderous art critic, who, in an effort to make a lasting name for himself, tracks down the greatest painter in the world, now a hermit living in rural Florida.

THE OPRAH BOOK CLUB may be curtains, but publishers have devised a new way to plant their books on daytime TV.

St. Martin's Press has acquired "Lorelei's Guiding Light: An Intimate Diary," an account of a year in the life of Lorelei Hills, a character from CBS sudser "Guiding Light." The diary will actually figure into the show as a story element.

The deal comes more than a year after HarperCollins attempted a similar gambit with "Hidden Passions: Secrets from the Diaries of Tabitha Lenox."

That book emerged from the NBC soap opera "Passions," and it, too, was woven into the plot of the show. HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman even appeared in one episode.