UpNext: Darren Star, TV producer

Not long after his 18th birthday, a dewy-eyed Darren Star told his close-knit family in Phoenix, Maryland, that he was moving to Los Angeles.

Not long after his 18th birthday, a dewy-eyed Darren Star told his close-knit family in Phoenix, Maryland, that he was moving to Los Angeles.

It can’t have come as too much of a shock: after all, the family name was pure Hollywood and he was a movie-mad teen who had been dabbling in film and TV scriptwriting since the age of nine.

The City of Angels not only became his home, but also his muse: his pilot for the hit show Beverly Hills 90210 (1990 to 2000) was set in the heart of its most manicured precincts, but also drew on the shenanigans of Star’s well-to-do high school mates back home, while Melrose Place (1992 to 1999) was modelled on an incestuous West Hollywood apartment block in which he once lived.

“You write about what you know, and what you dream,” says Star, who will visit Australia for the National Screenwriters’ Conference in the Barossa Valley on February 25-27 (www.awg.com.au/nsc). “But you also need to have the right idea at the right time – and lots of luck.”

Star, 47, has a knack for tapping into the zeitgeist: he brought Sex and the City, based on Candace Bushnell’s newspaper columns, to the small screen just as the media were reporting on the rise of a new generation of high-powered, high-style, high-sexed post-feminist women. “My favourite characters,” he says, “are the outrageous ones who say what they think.”

Now one of Hollywood’s most powerful TV writers and producers, Star sheepishly admits he doesn’t watch much TV. “I love Curb Your Enthusiasm, have caught a little of Weeds and need to catch up on Mad Men,” he says. And yes, he’s still in love with LA, enjoying nothing more on Sundays than cruising down to Malibu from his digs in the Hollywood Hills.

UpClose 

/ / Star fell out with Bushnell last year when her new show, Lipstick Jungle, was launched at the same time as his own Sex and the City follow-up, Cashmere Mafia, which was soon axed.

/ / Openly gay, he has spoken out against the overturning of gay marriage rights in California. “Younger people are more tolerant,” he says, “so it’s only a matter of time.”

Greg Callaghan