Frances Doel, neé Frances Margaret Doel, writer-producer-executive identified for her work with indie movie legend Roger Corman, died May 26 after a protracted sickness. She was 83.
Doel first related with Corman when she noticed a posting for an assistant on a jobs board at Oxford University, the place she was a graduating scholarship scholar of St. Hilda’s College.
She moved to Los Angeles, taking over residence on the Women’s Y in Hollywood and dealing for Corman’s New World Pictures all through its heyday, which spanned the Nineteen Sixties, ’70s and early ’80s. Doel was Corman’s right-hand, writing scripts, creating scripts with different scribes, coordinating tasks in manufacturing and serving as script supervisor on location.
Many Corman-produced movies have been thought to have uncredited writing contributions from Doel. She was formally credited for writing on New World’s cult classics, Big Bad Mama (1974) and Crazy Mama (1975). At New World, Doel labored alongside future Hollywood luminaries, Oscar winners, Emmy winners and legends, together with Chinatown screenwriter Robert Towne; actors like Warren Beaty, Angie Dickinson, Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, William Shatner, and Shelley Winters; producers Jon Davison and Gale Anne Hurd; administrators Peter Bogdanovich, James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, Martin Scorsese, Joe Dante and Allan Arkush.
From New World Pictures, Doel went on to function a artistic government for Orion Pictures underneath Mike Medavoy for the filming of The Terminator (1984), Robocop (1987), The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) and Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). She was a improvement government for Disney throughout the Katzenberg period when Outrageous Fortune (1987), Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) and Dead Poets Society (1989) have been made.
Doel later joined forces with fellow Corman veteran Jon Davison to co-produce TriStar’s now cult basic, Starship Troopers (1997). In the final decade of her profession, Doel returned to working with Corman, serving as his VP of Production at Concorde-New Horizons, the place she continued to supply and write on a slate of movie and tv tasks.
In a 2024 YouTube reel, “The Terminator at 40!,” Terminator writer-director James Cameron and its writer-producer Gale Anne Hurd credit score Doel for getting the movie made at Orion when it couldn’t discover a house elsewhere. Doel married and later divorced Broadway, movie, and tv actor-director Clint Kimbrough.
Doel is survived by her youthful siblings, Rosemary Tannock, Diana Clayden and Roger Clayden and their households, by longtime companion Harrison Reiner, and by her beloved buddies Pam Abraham, Jon Davison, Robert L. Goodman, Gale Anne Hurd, Guy Prevost, Anne Dyer Rodman, Adam Rodman, Stephanie Rothman, and Jeffrey Sturges. Those wishing to honor Doel could make a donation to Best Friends Animal Society in her reminiscence at Best Friends Animal Society or by fostering or adopting a rescue shelter animal.
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