Up Close & Personal

Up Close & Personal is a 1996 American romantic drama film directed by Jon Avnet from a screenplay written by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. It stars Robert Redford as a news director and Michelle Pfeiffer as his protégée, with Stockard Channing, Joe Mantegna, and Kate Nelligan in supporting roles. The screenplay began as an adaptation of Golden Girl: The Story of Jessica Savitch, a 1988 book by Alanna Nash that recounted the troubled life of American news anchor Jessica Savitch. The finished picture, however, was greatly altered by commercial decisions on the part of the producers, and bore little resemblance to Savitch's biography. Dunne, having spent eight years working on the script with his wife Didion, later wrote a book describing his difficult experience, t