He was the screenwriting colossus behind Flashdance, Jagged Edge, Showgirls and more. Now clean, \u2018Hollywood\u2019s Shakespeare\u2019 talks about today\u2019s scared studios, his refugee trauma \u2013 and taking acid with Hunter S Thompson<\/p>\n
Joe Eszterhas was the swaggering pitchman of 80s and 90s Hollywood; the king of the high-concept, precision-tooled blockbuster. He wrote Jagged Edge, co-scripted Flashdance<\/a>, and pocketed a then record $3m for his Basic Instinct screenplay. Writers typically skulk near the bottom of the industry food chain but Eszterhas flipped the script to make himself a boss and a brand. ABC called him a \u201cliving legend\u201d, while Time magazine posed a breathless rhetorical question: \u201cIf Shakespeare were alive today, would his name be Joe Eszterhas?\u201d<\/p>\n Pride, as any hack writer will tell you, usually comes before a fall, and so it was with Eszterhas, who confused success with excess and barely got out of the business alive. \u201cThe coke and the booze,\u201d he says, remembering. \u201cThose weren\u2019t helping my creativity, they were holding it back.\u201d His best years in Hollywood were conversely his worst.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/78f7d71155ea33cf35a1c63f3295128061f0b734\/0_226_2003_1602\/master\/2003.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=514e53d417d51111dafa12f4fed89f66\" "\\"\u2018Coke")
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