Tuesday, Dec. 16, 1997 | 9:17 a.m.
Jeff Rivera learned firsthand why Hollywood is brimming with broken dreams.
Until recently, the 21-year-old Las Vegan was holding what he hoped would be his ticket to cinematic stardom: A screenplay he wrote titled "Captives of The Amistad."
The piece is based on a chapter in the non-fiction book, "The Underground Railroad in Connecticut," penned by Rivera's grandfather, former Wesleyan University professor Horatio T. Strother, more than three decades ago.
The plot follows a shipload of African slaves crossing the Caribbean Sea during the mid-1800s. Fed up with their unlawful bondage and abuse, they revolt and kill all but three of their captors, and are later tried for their murders on American soil, with former United States President John Quincy Adams representing the defense.
Sound familiar? It should: It's similar to the storyline -- give or take a few characters -- of the epic "Amistad," directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by choreographer Debbie Allen, which opened in theaters nationwide last week.
Or is it?
Historic story
The movie is about the previously little-known Amistad incident of 1839, when more than 50 members of the Mende tribes were kidnapped in West Africa, taken aboard the ship La Amistad, and sold into slavery off Cuba's coast.
Using crude weaponry, they managed to overcome the Spanish crew, killing all but two, and demanded to be taken back to their native land. But, in the dark of night, the remaining crew members reversed the ship's direction and the group, led by Joseph Cinque, was captured off Long Island, N.Y.
Cinque was tried for murder -- in a case that reached the United States Supreme Court -- and won. The group was granted passage back to Africa.
That's also the gist of Rivera's screenplay, a copy of which the fledgling actor and model claims he sent to executives at Spielberg's production company, DreamWorks SKG, in 1994, in hopes that the "Schindler's List" director would want to turn it into a film.
"I was so captivated by this story and I said, 'This story has got to be told,' " Rivera says. "It was almost like a vision: I saw Steven Speilberg directing it; I saw them winning Academy Awards for it."
In his mind, he'd already cast Wesley Snipes in the role of Cinque, and Andy Griffith as Adams. (In the screen version, newcomer Djimon Hounsou plays Cinque and Anthony Hopkins stars as the former president.)
"I knew that if I could get it to Steven Speilberg and have a meeting with him that it would fly," Rivera says, "because he was the perfect person (to direct) it."
He solicited the help of Ned Barnett, senior vice president of a pair of local public relations/marketing firms and a founding member of the Nevada Screenwriters organization.
Barnett, who also works as a professional "script doctor," read several original drafts of "Captives," and helped Rivera smooth out the rough spots.
"It was thoroughly well-rounded. For a young screenwriter just starting out, it was very good and had enough merit to pitch it to someone like Spielberg," says Barnett, adding that it "had some good dramatic elements that may or may not be in the movie."
In the meantime, a then 17-year-old Rivera, aided by his personal manager Kathy Wilson, set out on a letter-writing and telephone campaign of sorts, to spread word of the script to everyone in the entertainment industry who they knew was even remotely connected to Spielberg.
Or to Debbie Allen, who, as Rivera later learned, had initiated an Amistad project of her own more than 10 years ago, after coming across volumes of essays about the incident.
Besides actor Arsenio Hall, director Robert Zemeckis, "20/20" anchor Barbara Walters and talk show diva Oprah Winfrey, Rivera's and Wilson's "hit list" of contacts included a family friend of Allen's, who helped facilitate a phone call from the former "Fame" star to Wilson last February.
"At one point, (Allen) said that she would give (Rivera) a call when she was in Vegas," says Wilson, whose company, Wilson Entertainment, Inc., is headquartered in Oregon. The phone call, she says, never came.
Allen's publicist did not respond to a request from the SUN for a comment on the matter.
Rejection and outrage
It wasn't long before Rivera's road became riddled with rejection letters. He heard little from DreamWorks, which he says kept his screenplay for several months.
Weekly phone calls and additional letters to the company's Southern California office got him nowhere -- until last fall, that is, when he first learned from a DreamWorks executive that Spielberg's "Amistad" was already in the works.
"He told me, 'We already have the story and we're going to develop it,' " Rivera recalls. "I was thinking, 'Why didn't you tell me that months ago?' "
Wilson says: "That's when we went, 'Whoa, what's this?' That's when we got really concerned and wrote several attorneys."
Had he been ripped off? "That was my first (thought)," Rivera says, "that they took (the screenplay) and Debbie Allen got a hold of it. I was so mad."
Rivera isn't the only one, however, who thought DreamWorks might have stolen their script.
A federal judge recently ruled that author Barbara Chase-Riboud did not prove that Spielberg plagiarized her 1989 novel "Echo of Lions," which chronicled the 1839 rebellion led by a slave named Joseph Cinque, resulting in the landmark case argued by Adams before the Supreme Court. An injunction that would have halted "Amistad's" opening as a result of the case was also declined.
Though Rivera and Wilson initially considered taking legal action, they knew the odds of winning a lawsuit against DreamWorks would be stacked against them.
"Nobody wants to take on Spielberg," Wilson says. Also, because the Amistad incident was a historic event, and thereby considered public domain, "you'd have to prove ... was that your story that they took?"
It wasn't, assures Burt Field, a top entertainment industry attorney who represents DreamWorks.
Fields says the company acknowledges receiving letters from Rivera while the "Amistad" screenplay was being developed by its writers. However, it has no record of ever receiving a copy of the "Captives of the Amistad" screenplay.
While he's not denying that Rivera sent it, Fields says that "normally, if a screenplay has been submitted, there would be a copy or some record of it being received. Any material submitted by Mr. Rivera was not used and did not find its way into the film. We wish Mr. Rivera well and can only assure him that nobody ripped him off."
(Legal action is still a possibility, Wilson says, especially if she notes any similarities between Spielberg's film and Rivera's screenplay.)
Nevertheless, Rivera was devastated by the news of the impending "Amistad" release. "Four years of passion and your life. This was my hope and my dream for success," he says.
But he wasn't about to let go that easily.
Trying another road
"I said, 'Let's make a positive out of this.' If he couldn't tell the story as a producer, he thought he could at least get a role in the movie or another job on the production, he says.
He continued calling and sending letters to Spielberg and company, which were answered earlier this year with a letter requesting that Rivera "please refrain from any further correspondence to DreamWorks executives."
Shortly after Allen's call to Wilson, Rivera attempted to visit the DreamWorks office, located on the Universal Studios lot in Hollywood, and have his plight heard. Security guards escorted him off the property.
That's standard practice, Fields says. "If somebody doesn't have an appointment, they will get escorted off the lot. It isn't just Mr. Rivera."
"It was so embarrassing and I was so disappointed," Rivera says. "I went all the way down there. The least they could have done was meet with me. I understand they have a right to protect (Spielberg) from people, they don't know who I am, they don't know if I'm some kind of wacko," he says. "But when someone sends 40 different letters to different people ... it should get their attention. They should want to help."
Early on, Rivera continues, "we got a lot of empty promises from them -- 'We'll help you. We're doing the best we can.' It was all words and I think it was to ... shut me up, but I wouldn't shut up. What did they expect me to do, just sit back and wait for things to happen? You should be persistent."
That he is.
Rivera has continued penning screenplays, including a fictional tale called "Uncle Tom," about a black man who joins the Ku Klux Klan, which he claims to have submitted to DreamWorks earlier this year. (He's heard the company has "passed" on the idea.)
"I had to give them the benefit of the doubt," he says. "I had to think, 'OK, maybe they didn't steal (his Amistad screenplay), maybe I'm just overreacting, maybe I should give them another chance.' "
And the hope that maybe, just maybe, Tinseltown would smile on him this time around.
archive
