Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon in “Fever Pitch,” an Ode to Red Sox Fandom


A memoir about soccer was transformed into a romcom about baseball and spawned a life of its own.
by Rich Watson

In 1992, Nick Hornby, the English novelist and screenwriter, released a memoir called Fever Pitch, a love letter to his favorite sport, soccer. GQ called it “tears-running down-your-face, read-bits-out-loud-to-complete-strangers funny, but also highly perceptive and honest.” Time Out said it “transcends the mundane and the sporty to say something about the way we live.” 

One might not have suspected Hollywood to have taken interest in a highly personal volume about a sport that never quite caught on in America the way it has in other countries. Hornby, however, was hot, and often, that’s enough.

So how did the movie version get turned into a romantic comedy about baseball?

6 comments:

  1. I'm surprised that you didn't comment on my two posts from last week. CLASSIC TV FAN

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  2. Must’ve forgot. Life is like that sometimes.

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  3. I appreciated the thorough background on the journey thus far of Fever Pitch. My sister Maureen us a big Hornby fan but I have been slow to join her.

    Nice work. I have some catching up to do.

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  4. Hey! Look who’s back! I take it you’re recovering nicely.

    You might like Hornby’s novels. One of his more recent books, FUNNY GIRL, is about 60s British television. I’d start there.

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  5. There were three TV-Movies about AMY FISHER, a teenage girl from LONG ISLAND who was seeing a married man(JOEY). She shot his wife (the wife survived). DREW BARRYMORE played Amy in the ABC one. First NBC aired the one from Amy's viewpoint. It starred NOELLE PARKER and ED MARINARO. Six days later CBS aired the one from Joey's viewpoint. It starred ALYSSA MILANO and JACK SCALIA. That same evening ABC aired the one with Drew Barrymore. It also starred ANTHONY JOHN DENISON. This was the toward the end of 1992. I saw all three movies. Do you recall the Amy Fisher story in the newspapers? Did you see any of the movies? P.S. First Anthony John Denison went by the name ANTHONY DENISON then after adding his middle name he later went by TONY DENISON.

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  6. I probably saw at least one of them but I don’t remember.

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