Screenwriter Gregory Allen Howard, who skillfully tailored stories of historic Black figures in Remember the Titans starring Denzel Washington, Ali with Will Smith and Harriet with Cynthia Erivo, has died. He was 70.
Howard died Friday at his property in Miami following a brief sickness, according to a assertion from publicist Jeff Sanderson.
Howard was the initially Black screenwriter to write a drama that designed $100 million US at the box office when Titans crossed that milestone in 2000. It was about a actual-existence Black coach coming into a newly integrated Virginia school and assisting direct their football staff to victory.
It experienced the iconic line: “I really don’t treatment if you like every single other or not. But you will respect each other.”
Howard said he shopped the tale all around Hollywood with no achievement. So he took a probability and wrote the screenplay himself.
‘It produced my career’
“They did not be expecting it to make a lot income, but it turned a monster, making $100 million,” he reported. “It built my occupation,” he instructed the Periods-Herald of Vallejo, Calif., in 2009.
The movie produced the Involved Press’ listing of the ideal 25 sporting activities movies at any time manufactured.
Howard adopted up Remember the Titans with Ali, the 2001 Michael Mann-directed biopic of Muhammad Ali. Smith famously bulked up to engage in Ali and was nominated for a very best actor Oscar.
Howard also developed and co-wrote 2019’s Harriet, about abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Erivo led a cast that included Leslie Odom Jr., Clarke Peters and Joe Alwyn.
“I acquired into this business to create about the complexity of the Black guy … I consider it normally takes a Black person to write about Black gentlemen,” he instructed the Moments-Herald.
From finance to film
Born in Virginia, his household moved usually due to his stepfather’s occupation in the U.S. Navy. Following attending Princeton University, graduating with a diploma in American history, Howard briefly worked at Merrill Lynch on Wall Avenue ahead of going to Los Angeles in his mid-20s to pursue a producing job.
He wrote for Tv and penned the engage in Tinseltown Trilogy, which concentrated on 3 males in Los Angeles about Christmastime as their stories interconnect and notify each individual other.
Howard also wrote The Harlem Renaissance, a restricted collection for HBO Misty, the story of prima ballerina Misty Copeland and This Small Light-weight, the Fannie Lou Hamer story. Most a short while ago, he wrote the civil legal rights job Energy to the Folks for producer Ben Affleck and Paramount Shots.
He is survived by his sister Lynette Henley, brother Michael Henley and two nieces and a nephew.