Daryl Ponicsan
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Daryl Ponicsan is a writer, best known as the author of the 1971 novel The Last Detail, which was adapted into a 1973 movie starring Jack Nicholson; and for the 1973 novel and screenplay Cinderella Liberty, starring James Caan.
He was born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, in the heart of the anthracite coal-mining territory. The settings for some of his novels bear a relationship to his life experiences as Navy seaman, social worker in Watts, and junior high school teacher.
- Goldengrove (1971) follows the life of an ineffectual high school teacher in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb.
- The Last Detail (1971) is about Navy seaman Buddusky, charged with bringing seaman Meadows to prison within two weeks, and their efforts to have as good a time as possible in the meantime.
- Andoshen, PA (1973) is a novel set in "a fictitious town 14 real miles from John O'Hara's fictitious Gibbsville." In the words of one character, "If there's a war they won't bomb us. The planes will look down and think we've already been bombed."
- Cinderella Liberty (1973)
- Tom Mix Died for Your Sins (1975) is a novel based on the life of silent movie star Tom Mix.
- The Accomplice (1975)
- The Ringmaster (1978) follows the life of a mediocre travelling circus in 1970s America.
- An Unmarried Man (1980) is about a master wood-carver strugging with the aftermath of a brutal divorce.
Ponicsan also wrote the screenplays for the (1977) CBS movie A Girl Called Hatter Fox, the movies TAPS (1981), Vision Quest (1985), Nuts (1987), The Boost (1988), School Ties (1992), the HBO movie The Enemy Within (1992), and the CBS series The Mississippi (1983).