Biography
DEBORAH AMELON is an Emmy and ACE award nominated writer, a New York Times bestselling author, and an international award- winning filmmaker with both producing and directing credits. She has written for ABC-TV, CBS-TV, NBCUniversal, Showtime, Paramount, Disney, Warner Bros. , Savoy, Rastar, Mind's Eye Entertainment, the CBC, CTV, ITC Entertainment, Jaffe/Braunstein, Zev Braun Productions, as well as working with many other production companies.
She has written numerous movies for television, series, and theatrical features. Her credits include EXIT TO EDEN, TRICKS, THE LAST SHOT, HUNGER POINT, WHEN HE WAS SAM, THE OTHER LOVER, NASH BRIDGES, PARENT TRAP II and III, and CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL.
Amelon adapted the Anne Rice novel EXIT TO EDEN for Director Garry Marshall. It stars Dana Delany, Rosie O'Donnell and Dan Ackroyd. She also wrote TRAVELING SALESLADY for Garry Marshall and legendary producer Ray Stark.
She won the Samuel Goldwyn Award, while attending UCLA, for her screenplay of TRICKS, which went on to become a theatrical release starring Mimi Rogers and Tyne Daly. It was produced by Showtime to rave reviews for capturing the underbelly of Las Vegas.
Ms. Amelon won the prestigious International CINE Golden Eagle Award for both writing and directing THE LAST SHOT, which was also a finalist in the Oscar Short Film Category, and starred Garry Marshall and Adam Baldwin. She also won a Cable Ace nomination for directing, as well as several film festivals including the Santa Barbara and Mill Valley Festivals.
CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL is the series based on the best-selling books. She directed the pilot, starring Meredith Baxter-Birney, from which PAX-TV gave the greenlight for the series. She was the series' showrunner, producing 122 of the stories, as well as directing eight of the stories. She worked with many well-known and esteemed actors on the show including Martin Sheen, Gary Cole, Charles Durning, Jack Lemmon, Teri Garr, and Rod Steiger.
In 2005, Amelon was honored by the Writer's Guild of America for her original ABC teleplay, KATIE's CHOICE, as Best Unproduced by publishing it in their member journal, "Written By." She wrote the original screenplay, ROPE DANCIN', commissioned by 21st Century Film Corporation, with Director Martha Coolidge, the only female president in the history of the Director's Guild of America. Amelon wrote the original screenplay, CUTTING EDGE, commissioned by Century Park Pictures, about a figure skater who overcomes obstacles to compete in the sport, not a stretch for her as she grew up a competitive figure skater.
In addition to the prestigious Directors such as Garry Marshall, Martha Coolidge, Nicholas Meyer, Joan Micklin Silver, and Penny Marshall, Amelon has worked with Producers such as Academy Award winner Wendy Finerman, Academy Award winner Steve Tisch, Emmy winner Orly Adelson, and prolific television producers Frank Von Zerneck, Robert Sertner and Howard Braunstein.
At CBS, she developed, researched, and wrote the historical project, ROCKET WOMEN, about the female pilots known as the Mercury 13, who were tested to become astronauts in 1961.
Her film adaptation of the Jillian Medoff novel, HUNGER POINT, was produced by Lifetime and Jaffe/Braunstein. It stars Christina Hendricks and Barbara Hershey. The movie received stellar reviews in the Hollywood Reporter and the Los Angeles Times, spotlighting Amelon's writing as "something extraordinary" and became the highest rated movie in its debut month.
A dual American and Canadian citizen, Amelon wrote the teleplay, TARNISHED GOLD, for CTV, the story of Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, the Canadian Pair Team awarded the second Gold Medal in the Salt Lake Olympic judging scandal.
She wrote an adaptation of the famous book, SMART WOMEN, FOOLISH CHOICES, for ABC-TV with Academy Award winning producers Steve Tisch and Wendy Finerman.
She wrote the original teleplay, DANCE HALL, for Academy Award Best Actress Nominee and Tony Award Winner Lee Remick, CBS-TV and Warner Bros. For CBS-TV she also wrote the teleplays, THE OTHER LOVER and BUT NOT FOR KEEPS.
For Zev Braun productions, she interviewed Tonya Harding in 1994, right after the Detroit incident, to write the true story of what Tonya experienced. Amelon wrote a treatment that exonerated Tonya.
Amelon also wrote year-long bibles for three CBS soap operas, which sent their daytime ratings to the top one, two, and three, and were Emmy nominated.
She worked closely with Emmy award winning actor, Joe Mantegna, on her screenplay, the thriller NO ONE WAS WATCHING. She adapted the romantic comedy, OUT OF THE BLUE from the Laura Castora novel, A NEW LU. She has script doctored several movies, including CHALLENGE OF A LIFETIME with Penny Marshall.
She authored Dorothy Hamill's story, A SKATING LIFE, which soared onto the NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST, just four days after publication in October 2007. This National Bestseller debuted in paperback in October 2008. The book has become an academic favorite among high school English teachers, appearing on several national "most recommended lists." Amelon initially sold the book proposal to Hyperion as a third person biography but then was able to use her skills as a screenwriter to write it in first person, using Dorothy's voice, essentially approaching the book as "an 80,000 word monologue."
Amelon wrote the screenplay, THE FRUITS OF VICTORY, working with legend Tommy Lasorda and sixteen baseball players on the story of the American Gold Medal win in baseball at the Sydney Summer Olympics. She went on to adapt the Steven Lindsteadt sci-fi novel, EARTHBEAT, for the screen. Her current projects include directing the film she wrote, ONE NIGHT STAY, with Gia Mantegna set to star.
Ms. Amelon graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in English Literature from UCLA and went on to earn an MFA from UCLA's School of Film and Television. Before college and after graduating high school early, she skated with Shipstad and Johnson's ICE FOLLIES, culminating a career as a competitive figure skater, traveling with them for nearly three years all over the United States and Canada, earning enough money to pay her way through college. She first started as a playwright, and studied at University of Michigan and the University of London before transferring to UCLA.
As a way to pay it forward to the next generation, she has been a Visiting Professor at UCLA, teaching screenwriting in the Graduate School of Film and Television, and guest lectured at the UCLA Conference Center in Lake Arrowhead for several years. She also teaches screenwriting in the MFA programs at Chapman and CSUN. She has served on boards for schools and environmental causes. She has been a member of the Writers Guild of America since 1983 as well a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She and her husband, architect Robert Huddy, have two adult sons.
