Jenny Bowen

During the early 1970s, she also began directing and staged the West Coast premiere of "The Criminals." Becoming interested in doing radio plays, Bowen joined Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope to learn more about sound technology as an apprentice recording engineer. Instead of directing radio plays, her interests turned to film. Her first idea for a film, which became "Street Music," came directly from demonstrations she witnessed in San Francisco when developers were dispossessing elderly tenants at a residential hotel. Bowen wrote the screenplay and shot the film for $650,000, with her husband serving as director of photography. While the film won awards, it gained limited distribution, coming too soon for the era of the independent films and multiplexes hungry for product. But Bowen was invited to participate at the Sundance Institute and developed "Animal Behavior." Shot in 1984-85 and featuring Armand Assante and Holly Hunter, it was never released because of a falling out between investors that resulted in a stalemated litigation. Bowen was next approached with the script for "The Wizard of Loneliness" (1988), about a city boy adjusting to country life when he is sent to live with his grandparents during World War II. Starring Lukas Haas and Sada Thompson, the project eventually became an "American Playhouse" presentation after a brief theatrical run.