John Davis eyes 'Dorothy Kilgallen'

Producer options proposal for expose book

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen landed the only interview with Jack Ruby, the killer of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

Producer John Davis has optioned "Good Night, Dorothy Kilgallen," a proposal for an expose book by Paul Alexander that ties the syndicated columnist’s death to her investigation of the JFK assassination. Book sold to St. Martin's Press.

Davis will produce through his Davis Entertainment banner and will bring the project to Fox through his first-look deal.

Alexander, whose previous books include "Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life of James Dean," will script a fictionalized conspiracy film supervised by screenwriter Shane Salerno.

Salerno and Derek Dauchy will be exec producers.

In her syndicated column Kilgallencovered subjects ranging from Hollywood to Sam Sheppard’s murder trial. After the death of President John F. Kennedy, whom she considered a friend, Kilgallen became obsessed with proving a conspiracy and landed the only interview with Jack Ruby, the killer of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, for a book called "Murder One." Alexander’s tome asserts that Kilgallen died mysteriously after turning in her book, with the chapters about JFK disappearing.

"The striking thing about Paul’s book proposal was that Dorothy wasn’t reporting on the death of a president as much as she was investigating the murder of a friend," Salerno said. Salerno recently set up the spec "Reckless" with Davis and Fox and preemptively sold Fox his spec "The Doomsday Protocol."