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The incredible original life of Garland

A foreward by the artist’s son, Michael Garland

Robert W. Garland was born in Brooklyn, New York on May 1, 1937. He died in Baltimore, Maryland on November 21, 2020. In between he was an unusually successful Hollywood screenwriter. He started writing for Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show in the 1960s and quickly evolved into a feature film writer. In addition to the dozens of unproduced scripts he was hired to write, he received screen credit or significantly “doctored” The Electric Horseman, The Big Blue, Now Way Out, Tootsie, Pretty Woman, Revenge, Hunt for Red October, and others.

When my father died, the personal testaments rolled in. For many he was the strangest, most gifted, peculiar, brilliant, frustrating, charming, and unforgettable person they had ever met. When I was a kid, he was a chimera – living everywhere and nowhere, flying the Concorde to Paris, scouting locations in Papua New Guinea with movie Director John Boorman, or briefly dating actress Diane Keaton. He was always just out of reach, more an imagined person than actual flesh and blood.

In the fullness of time, things changed. He eventually moved back to Baltimore in his final years, so that I could watch over him. Toward the end of his life, our relationship flip-flopped. A doctor once asked him if I was his son. No, he answered. I was his father. That about summed it up.

And in that spirit, as the proud upside-down father-son, I offer these sample images of the many thousands he created.

My Father's Art

Screenwriting Credits

Below is a partial list of the projects and productions Robert Garland worked on throughout his prolific career.

Credited and Produced

  • Trick Baby 1973 (as “T. Raewyn”)
  • Electric Horseman 1979
  • No Way Out 1987 (also credited as Producer)
  • The Big Blue 1988

Uncredited and Produced

  • Deal of The Century 1980
  • Tootsie 1982
  • Hunt for Red October 1990
  • Revenge 1990
  • Pretty Woman 1990
  • The 5th Element 1997

Unproduced

  • The Gulf of Mosquitos 1976

  • Delayed Reaction 1977

  • The Twilight Zone 1980 (very early version of 1983 film)

  • Lancelot the Lessor 1981

  • Cape Disappointment w/ George Yanok (date unknown)

  • The Last Hours Before Morning w/George Yanok (date unknown)

  • Giant Part II 1982 (sequel to Academy Award winner in 1956)

  • Mister Wright (for John Boorman) 1983

  • The Chips Are Down w/Alvin Sargent 1986

  • Scared to Death 1991

  • Collateral Damage 1995