WARREN MURPHY - AN APPRECIATION

Amongst the general reading public, many may not know the name Warren Murphy. However, to those of us who’ve followed his books (series or stand-alone novels), the man is – simply – priceless.

Warren is loved and respected by his peers as well and why not – in a lot of cases it was Warren who either inspired them to become writers in the first place or he, in fact, gave them their start in the book biz.

THE DESTROYER is probably Warren’s best-known book series. The initial Destroyer concept was co-created by his late writing partner, Richard Sapir. It was a mix of martial arts, larger-than-life plotting and VERY heavy on the “wiseass-ness”. An only-OK movie was made from the books in 1985 called REMO WILLIAMS – THE ADVENTURE BEGINS, but it failed to completely capture the correct relationship between the Korean father-figure mentor, Master Chuin, and his adopted son, the aforementioned Remo. Too, the movie dropped the ball by not utilizing any one of dozens of more interesting villains than the one they wound up creating from whole cloth. Ho-hum.

The Destroyer book series is on a temporary hiatus now after years of going from publisher to publisher. Another movie may be in the works and there is reason to hope that this time it will be done right. Or as right as Hollywood can get anything.

Another of Warren’s series, DIGGER, lasted only four books and was another set of very funny stories. Julian “Digger”Burroughs was an insurance investigator and was reincarnated as Devlin Tracy in the TRACE books a few years later. Only names changed; the series remained fresh and funny. Any of who you may remember the short-lived MURPHY’S LAW TV series with George Segal and Maggie Han might also recognize that this was inspired by Warren’s DIGGER and TRACE books.

Speaking of which, another of Warren’s book series, RAZONI & JACKSON, was the inspiration for the original LETHAL WEAPON movie. Riggs and Murtaugh were, indeed, Razoni and Jackson. The screenplay was written by Shane Black. He freely admitted that he used the Razoni and Jackson characters. When Warner Brothers asked him to do a LW II, Black agreed only on condition that Warren be brought on board to co-write it as a way to acknowledge that Warren’s characters had been pilfered for LETHAL WEAPON.

There were disagreements over the script between Black and Warren, mostly due to the fact that Black had the character of Martin Riggs dying at the end of the movie. Warren said to Black that he couldn’t do that because Warner Brothers were going to want LETHAL WEAPONS 3 and 4 and so on. The scripting job was then turned over to Jeffrey Boam, while Warren and Black got story credit for the finished product. This was not Warren’s first Hollywood scripting job; some years earlier, he wrote the screenplay for Clint Eastwood’s THE EIGER SANCTION from Trevanian’s book of the same name.

I’ve had the great good fortune to meet Warren, sit down, chat with him and yes – he IS every bit as funny and charming as you would picture him while reading one of his books. Later on, he co-dedicated one of his TRACE books, TOO OLD A CAT, to me. It also had the return of Razoni and Jackson, so it was a double treat.

Warren’s in semi-retirement now, or would be if he could ever get around to it. I guess he feels that there are more stories to tell and who knows, maybe he’ll even get involved in some more Hollywood projects – remaining safe from the Tinseltown madness at his Virginia Beach home while doing so.

All I can really say for sure is that he has a nice sized fan base, is one of the sweetest guys you’d ever meet and those of us who love books are far richer for knowing Warren and being entertained by him lo these many years.

Thanks, Warren!

For more information on Warren Murphy, his books and his life, visit www.warrenmurphy.com . Tell him Mike Madonna sent ya.