'Beauty And Beast' Writer Is As Feisty As Her Heroine

January 25, 1992|By Elaine Dutka, Los Angeles Times

HOLLYWOOD — If the independent, brainy Belle, the heroine of Beauty and the Beast, is a breakthrough in fairy-tale animation, so is Linda Woolverton - the first woman to write an animated feature for Disney.

''I wasn't on a soapbox,'' she says of her first big-screen outing - the highest-grossing first-run animated film ever and a possible best-picture Oscar contender. ''But Belle is a feminist. I'm not critical of Snow White, Cinderella . . . they reflected the values of their time. But it just wasn't in me to write a throwback. I wanted a woman of the '90s, someone who wanted to do something other than wait for her prince to come.''

Woolverton, fearful of being influenced by the imagery of the Jean Cocteau film version, decided not to watch it. She drew inspiration from Little Women instead. ''There's a lot of Katharine Hepburn in Belle,'' she says. ''Though the character of Jo is more tomboyish, both were strong, active women who loved to read - and wanted more than life was offering them.''

Not surprisingly, the 39-year-old Woolverton did too. Acting in local children's theater was an escape from a ''traumatic childhood.'' Writing became a release from the CBS network executive position she ditched in the mid-'80s. Though she was successful freelancing Saturday morning cartoon show scripts (The Berenstain Bears, My Little Pony), she soon tired of TV. ''My agent said I wasn't ready to write a Disney feature,'' Woolverton recalls.

In 1987, she got her chance. A Disney executive who had read a young-adult book Woolverton wrote while at CBS asked her to write for the studio. Although her first script, Winnie the Pooh, was abandoned after the TV show took off, Beauty and the Beast fared better.

''I thought it would be some quick money,'' Woolverton says. ''Three years later, I was still on the movie. If you stacked up the rewrites and put a piece of glass on top, you'd have a nice little coffee table.''

Because animation, as Woolverton points out, is a field dominated by men, diplomacy was occasionally required. In one scene, the screenplay had Belle pushing pins into a map of the world - places she wanted to visit - while waiting for her father to return. When Woolverton saw the segment on the storyboard, however, she found her heroine decorating a cake.

In the end, Belle was shown reading a book - which also had provoked some discussion. Because reading might be deemed a passive hobby, the opening scene has her walking and reading at once - which Woolverton herself used to do as a child.

There is more than a passing resemblance, in fact, between the writer and Belle. ''I'm not shy,'' she says. ''When it comes to creative things, I've got a big mouth. I speak my mind quite loudly, which comes as a surprise to some people. I probably made a bit of a pain of myself.''

And the egotistical, boorish Gaston? He was inspired by past beaus. ''There's tinges of guys I used to date,'' Woolverton says with a smile.

At one point, a rather maternal, pedantic Belle was portrayed as ''just friends'' with the Beast - an approach that didn't sit well with Woolverton. ''At heart, the story is a romance,'' she says, ''and I didn't want to disappoint. Belle wanted excitement and adventure in her life - but, like most of us, she also wanted someone to share it with. The Beast is someone who shares her love of books, her values. As a fellow outsider, he's also misunderstood. He finally realizes he was wrong - and that he can change. In the end, Belle gets a great guy.''

And Woolverton lives happily ever after, too. She and her husband of three years have an infant daughter, Keaton. Disney, thrilled with the response to Beauty, has offered her a long-term deal. She is co-writing her first live-action script, a remake of the 1963 Disney film The Incredible Journey - the story of pets who cross the Sierras to get home - which will be released by the studio in the spring. Her next animated feature is King of the Jungle, an original coming-of-age story set in Africa (with lyrics by Evita's Tim Rice and music by Elton John); it is due out Christmas 1993.

''Friends told me that it's much better if the first book you write isn't published,'' she says. ''My first two were. They told me it's better if your first produced screenplay isn't pushed for best picture. Mine is, the first animated film to be considered for this award. This is nice, but real scary to me. I just hope that Beauty and the Beast isn't the greatest thing I ever do.''

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