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Jane Hamsher (born July 25, 1959) is an American film producer, author, and blogger best known as the author of Killer Instinct, a memoir about co-producing the 1994 movie Natural Born Killers with Don Murphy and others,[1] and as the founder and publisher of the politically progressive blog FireDogLake (2004 – the present).[2] With Murphy, she also co-produced the subsequent films Apt Pupil (1998), Permanent Midnight (1998), and From Hell (2001).[2][3] A contributor to The Huffington Post, she posts also in other liberal Websites and political magazines, such as AlterNet and The American Prospect.[2]
[edit] Personal history and educationHamsher was born in Massachusetts and raised in Seattle, Washington.[citation needed] In the early 1990s, she studied film producing in The Peter Stark Producing Program in what was then called the School of Cinema-Television (CNTV), of the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, a program leading to a Master of Fine Arts.[4] Hamsher was diagnosed with breast cancer for the third time in December 2006, when she was 47.[5] In January 2007 she successfully underwent surgery at Saint John's Health Center, in Santa Monica, California, and then traveled to Washington, D.C., to "live-blog" the Libby trial for FireDogLake.[6] After residing in Otter Rock, Oregon,[7] Santa Monica, and Guilford, Connecticut,[8] Hamsher lives in Washington, DC. [edit] Professional career as film producerAt USC, Hamsher became friends with Don Murphy, they formed a production company, Jane and Don Productions, Inc., and, for $10,000, they secured an option on the original screenplay for the 1994 satirical crime film Natural Born Killers,[9] written by a then-unknown Quentin Tarantino,[1] though "the film, directed by Oliver Stone, departed significantly from Tarantino's original screenplay, so much so that Tarantino removed his name from the screenplay credits."[10] The film starred Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Rodney Dangerfield, Robert Downey, Jr., and Tommy Lee Jones; also co-produced with Thom Mount and Arnon Milchan, its credited screenwriters included Stone, Dave Veloz, and Richard Rutowski. In addition to co-producing the film, Hamsher also had an uncredited cameo in it as a female demon.[citation needed] Subsequently, Hamsher and Murphy also co-produced two 1998 films, Brandon Boyce's screen adaptation Apt Pupil, from the Stephen King novella, directed by Bryan Singer and starring Ian McKellen, Brad Renfro, and David Schwimmer, and Permanent Midnight, adapted by Jerry Stahl and David Veloz from Stahl's autobiographical novel and starring Ben Stiller, Maria Bello, and Elizabeth Hurley; and the 2001 thriller From Hell, based on Terry Hayes and Rafael Yglesias' adaptation of the graphic novel From Hell, by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, directed by the Hughes Brothers, and starring Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, Ian Holm, Robbie Coltrane, Ian Richardson, and Jason Flemyng. Hamsher also produced or co-produced the 1990 dramatic feature film An American Summer and the 1994 live-action film adaptation Double Dragon, based on Double Dragon, a video game franchise.[3] [edit] Killer InstinctIn 1997, Hamsher published the controversial memoir Killer Instinct recounting her and her co-producers' experiences making Natural Born Killers.[1] Thomas Ferlauto, an attorney who had reached a settlement in a civil lawsuit against them for fraud on behalf of Rand Vossler, a friend of Tarantino's who was originally to direct the film––litigation criticized in the book––filed a subsequent unsuccessful lawsuit against both producers and Hamsher's publisher, Broadway Books, an imprint of Random House, charging defamation of his own character in the book, although Hamsher did not identify him by name in it.[11] According to a book review by Patrick Goldstein published in the Los Angeles Times in September 1997, "If nothing else, the book offers an intriguing insight into Hollywood power politics."[12] [edit] FireDogLakeIn December 2004, Hamsher founded the blog FireDogLake (FDL), naming it after her favorite activity at the time, sitting by the fire with her dog while watching Los Angeles Lakers games.[13] Then published on Blogger.com,[7] FireDogLake won a 2005 Koufax Award for "Best Series" for its detailed coverage of the Plame affair, while being in close contention for "Best New Blog" and "Best Group Blog".[14] In late 2005, Hamsher expanded FDL into a group blog, featuring such regular contributors as Christy Hardin Smith (aka "Reddhead"), Marcy Wheeler (aka "emptywheel"), "TRex", "Pachacutec", and "Siun", who have since been joined by others, and she publishes it utilizing WordPress, enabling moderated and filtered commenting. In 2008, in a profile of Hamsher published in the Washingtonian, she states that "FireDogLake has about 20 people who write for it, maybe a dozen site administrators who watch what's happening on the blog."[13] [edit] FDL Book SalonIn 2006 Hamsher launched the FDL Sunday Book Salon, in which participants discuss recent books, usually non-fiction political books, with a standing invitation for the books' authors to take part.[15] For two weeks, in late August and early September 2006, the topic of conversation was the book Conservatives Without Conscience, and participants included its author, John Dean; political and legal blogger and Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald; and former Ambassador Joe Wilson.[16][17] [edit] FDL BooksOn September 6, 2006, Hamsher announced a book imprint called FDL Books, later adding Vaster Books, in collaboration with Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos; its first release is a volume about the Valerie Plame affair by FireDogLake and Daily Kos contributor Marcy Wheeler ("emptywheel") entitled Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to Sell the Iraq War and Out a Spy (Berkeley: Vaster Books [Dist. by Publishers Group West], 2007).[18][19][20] To finance the publication of Wheeler's book, Hamsher sought to raise $65,000 in donations at FireDogLake,[21] ultimately raising $29,000 through PayPal contributions, according to the hyperlinked "dedicated fund-raising page" tracking results.[22] [edit] Libby trial coverageTaking turns with Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft, Christy Hardin Smith (aka "Reddhead"), Marcy Wheeler (aka "emptywheel"), "Pachacutec", and "egregious", Hamsher live-blogged the Scooter Libby trial from the courtroom for FireDogLake, as she had applied for and been granted two press passes which they all shared to attend and report on the trial in Washington, D.C.[5][23] The New York Times reporter Scott Shane observes: "With no audio or video feed permitted, the Firedoglake 'live blog' has offered the fullest, fastest public report available. Many mainstream journalists use it to check on the trial," and noted that "for blogs, the Libby trial marks a courthouse coming of age."[24] Online donors contributed to defray FDL's trial coverage costs, including travel expenses of the live-bloggers and rental of a Washington, D.C. apartment which they shared.[24] [edit] U.S. Senate election in Connecticut, 2006Hamsher supported Ned Lamont in his successful run for the Democratic nomination in the 2006 U.S. Senate election in Connecticut, against ultimately-successful incumbent senator Joe Lieberman, who ran independently as a third party candidate with the support of Connecticut for Lieberman.[25] Although Hamsher was not on the campaign staff,[26] she was among several bloggers who traveled with Lamont's campaign, and she promoted Lamont's candidacy and helped raise money for him through FireDogLake.[27] After Hamsher posted a partly-fictitious image depicting Lieberman in superimposed blackface embracing Bill Clinton created from a graphically-edited photograph of Lieberman and Clinton in her guest blog in The Huffington Post, she was publicly criticized by Lieberman's campaign and others for doing so.[27] The Lieberman campaign objected publicly that it found the image offensive and racist, with Lieberman publicly calling the use of blackface in the image "one of the most disgusting and hurtful images that has been used in American history, it's deeply offensive to people of all colors, and it has absolutely no place in the political arena today" and demanding that Lamont prohibit Hamsher from traveling with his campaign and to refuse any money that she may have raised for him.[27] Questioned about the image and his campaign's connections to Hamsher, Lamont responded, "I don't know anything about the blogs. I'm not responsible for those. I have no comment on them," but a spokesman for Lamont was quoted in The Washington Post as calling the image "offensive and inappropriate."[27] Hamsher removed the image after receiving a request from the Lamont campaign, later posting a statement on FireDogLake "apologiz[ing] to anyone who was genuinely offended by the choice of images," and criticizing Lieberman for using the controversy about the image to score political points.[26] During the summer of 2008, as the U.S. presidential nomination conventions approached, Hamsher continued her opposition to Senator Joe Lieberman's political aspirations in both FireDogLake and other venues, culminating in her Huffington Post entry emphatically stating her fear that he might be chosen by the Republican Presidential candidate John McCain for his Vice Presidential running mate: "Obviously, I have an elaborate nightmare where Joe Lieberman gets the VP nod, McCain wins, then dies -- and we're looking at a President Lieberman. At which point I and a host of others bloggers who supported Ned Lamont wind up in Guantanamo Bay."[28] After Barack Obama became President Elect on November 4, 2008, Hamsher unsuccessfully opposed Lieberman's staying in the Democratic Caucus of the United States Senate and retaining his chairmanship of his United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (both of which Obama ultimately supported), as a consequence not only of Senator Lieberman's prior disengagement from the Democratic Party, his support of the Republican presidential candidate McCain, and his failure to adhere to promises not to attack Obama during the campaign, but, also, more importantly from her perspective, of what she alleges to be Lieberman's "prevent[ing] Senatorial investigation into no-bid contracts and contractor abuse within the Department of Homeland Security," urging her readers to sign the "Just Say No to Joe" petition that she posted on FireDogLake.[29] [edit] Time Magazine, November 21, 2007In FireDogLake on November 27, 2007, Hamsher posted that she had determined that Priscilla Painton, then Deputy Managing Editor of Time, had edited a controversial column by Joe Klein, published on November 21, 2007.[30][31] According to Hamsher and several articles by Glenn Greenwald posted online at Salon,[32][33][34][35] as well as articles in The Chicago Tribune[36] and The National Review, Klein allegedly published false information regarding legislation that amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA): Protect America Act of 2007, based mainly upon claims by Peter Hoekstra, a Republican congressman who opposed that bill.[37] After Klein had qualified central statements in his article, commenting "I may have made a mistake in my column this week about the FISA legislation passed by the House," Hamsher telephoned Painton and asked her "what the editing process was, and how a piece with so many errors made it into print," to which Painton reportedly replied: "That assumes there are any errors," ending the phone call.[30] In response to Hamsher's account of her telephone conversation with Painton, Greenwald questioned the integrity of Time and its editor Painton.[32] [edit] Other organizationsJane Hamsher is listed as leading the CommonSense Media Advertising Network,[38] which includes Crooks & Liars, Eschaton, FireDogLake, FiveTHirtyEight, Pam's House Blend, and Think Progress. She also runs the political action groups Public Option Please[39], Blue America[40], Accountability Now[41], and FDL Action. [edit] Related activitiesHamsher has been a guest on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, the BBC, and Al Jazeera.[42] On April 7, 2008, she was a guest speaker in the panel discussion entitled "Intelligentsia" co-hosted by Elle and OfficeMax, along with Publisher of Elle Magazine Carol Smith, actress Melora Hardin, Vice President of Marketing for OfficeMax Julie Krueger, Editor in Chief of Elle Magazine Robbie Myers, footwear designer Taryn Rose, and Creative Director of Barneys Simon Dunan, at the Plaza Hotel, in New York City.[43] Among other blogger conference programs, she participated in the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Panels, held in Austin, Texas, from March 9 to 13, 2007, in which she also moderated Dan Rather's "Keynote Interview" event on Monday, March 12,[44] and in the panel on "Political Blogging: Macaca Mania" at the BlogWorld & New Media Expo 2008, in Las Vegas, Nevada, on September 20, 2008.[42] [edit] Healthcare debate
Hamsher has been a prominent voice in the 2009 US Congressional health-care debate. FDL has sponsored a campaign called "Kill the Bill" in reaction to the Senate's perceived lack of progressive reform.[45] In December 2009, she teamed up with Grover Norquist to call for the resignation of Rahm Emanuel for an alleged role in his participation in the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.[46] [edit] Filmography
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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