Four of John Irving's best selling novels have been turned into major motion pictures, three with his involvement and one with his permission.MY MOVIE BUSINESS discusses his experiences during the writing and filming of THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE and to a greater extent the upcoming release of THE CIDER HOUSE RULES. Simon Birch, an adaptation of OWEN MEANY, is, significantly, barely mentioned.

GARP starred Robin Williams in his second screen appearance and garnered Oscar nominations for its co-stars, John Lithgow and Glenn Close. Irving credits director George Roy Hill's casting and directing as the chief reason for GARP's success, as he was unhappy with the screenplay, over which he had little control.

Hill was right in casting Robin Williams as T. S. Garp, Irving says. "His only noticeable discomfort with the role was that he had too much body hair to convincingly play Garp as a teenager; hence, for those scenes, he was waxed. The sounds of Robin screaming from the trailer, where he was being waxed in preparation for the blow job scene, are memorable to this day."

He was a little more involved with HOTEL, and his reminiscences from location shoots with the actors and remarks about whether they fit his image of the characters are entertaining.

Irving had a great deal of artistic control over the making of THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, and devotes most of the book to that experience. The finished movie represents Irving's fifth complete screenplay written over a ten year span. He discusses the angst of having to delete entire major characters and subplots in order to compress a 552 page novel into 186 manuscript pages; then watching as major scenes hit the cutting room floor in final editing. Irving also relates his research during the writing of the book, with a tribute to his grandfather, a distinguished obstetrician and Harvard professor early in the century.

He is happy with the outcome, however, and THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, starring Michael Caine, Toby McGuire, Kathy Baker and Jane Alexander, is due for release Thanksgiving weekend of 1999.

   --- Reviewed by Roz Shea

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