The Selected Screenplays of Joan Didion

The picture above is from A Star Is Born (1976), Esther Hoffman's coming out performance at the American Indian Relief Fund concert. John Norman Howard Speedway was scheduled to perform in that spot, but Howard stopped the band after the first two bars to introduce Hoffman, who was not expecting to perform, though Hoffman's backup singers, the unfortunately named Oreos, were in on the surprise.

I have never seen the preceding A Star Is Born (1954), nor the 1937 version, for that matter, so I am not sure how much this scene borrows from its earlier writers (Moss Hart, Dorothy Parker, et al.) and how much was written by 1976 re-make writers Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne and director Frank Pierson. What we do know is that the "star" of the 1954 and 1937 versions was named Esther Blodgett (before adopting the stage name Vicki Lester), and that her mentor was singer-actor Norman Maine. Esther/Vicki's debut was not at the American Indian Relief Fund concert, but a musical in which both she and Maine appeared.

The 1976 version of A Star Is Born is not the first screenplay Didion co-wrote, nor the last. She and Dunne teamed up to write another old guy mentor/ambitious young woman (journalist) tale called Up Close & Personal (1996). Before that, an old guy (tor-)mentor/operatively ambivalent young woman (actor) tale based on Didion's novel, Play It As It Lays (1972), which you can watch here, in full.