Joe Eszterhas

József Antal Eszterhás (Hungarian: [ˈjoːʒɛf ɒntɒl ˈɛstɛrhaːʃ]; born November 23, 1944), credited as Joe Eszterhas, is a Hungarian-American writer. Born in Hungary, he grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. After an early career as a journalist and editor, he entered the film industry. His first screenwriting credit was for the film F.I.S.T. (1978). He co-wrote the script for Flashdance, which became one of the highest-grossing films of 1983, and set off a lucrative and prolific run for his career. By the early 1990s, he was known as the highest-paid writer in Hollywood, and noted for his work in the erotic thriller genre. He was paid a then-record $3 million for his script Love Hurts, which was produced as Basic Instinct (1992), and following its success, news outlets reported he earned seven-figure payouts solely on the basis of two-to-four page outlines.

Eszterhas' screenwriting career experienced a decline over the rest of the decade, with films such as Showgirls (1995), Jade (1995), and An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (1997), the latter receiving negative reviews and performing poorly at the box office. He mostly withdrew from Hollywood afterward, though he has since authored several books. His publications include American Rhapsody (2000), and two volumes of memoirs: Hollywood Animal (2004), an autobiography, and Crossbearer (2008), which detailed his adulthood return to the Catholic faith he was raised in.

Eszterhás was born in Csákánydoroszló, a village in Hungary, to Roman Catholic parents Mária (née Bíró) and István Eszterhás. He was born during World War II, and lived as a child in a refugee camp in Allied-occupied Austria. The family later moved to the United States, living first in Pittsburgh before settling in Cleveland in 1950, where Eszterhas was raised. He attended Ohio University. He decided to pursue writing as a career after winning a competition in 1966 sponsored by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation. The prize was awarded at the White House by then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

When Eszterhas was 45, he learned that his father had concealed his World War II collaboration in Hungary's Arrow Cross Party government after the German occupation of Hungary and that he had "organized book burnings and had produced anti-Semitic propaganda."^p.201 Eszterhas later described his father's anti-Semitic pamphlets as "like the Hungarian version of Mein Kampf." After this discovery, he cut his father out of his life entirely, never reconciling before his father's death in 2001. He paid for his father's care in later years but was not present at his death, saying in 2024 that "There are moments these many years later that I deeply regret that, and other moments that I'm proud of myself for not going".

Eszterhas had a daughter in 1967 who was put up for adoption at birth. They reunited in 1996. Eszterhas had two children with his first wife, Gerri Javor. The couple divorced in 1994 after nearly 24 years of marriage. That year, he married Naomi Baka, an Ohio native, and they had four sons. As of 2022^[update], Eszterhas lives in the Cleveland suburb of Bainbridge Township, Ohio. After previously living in Malibu, California, he and his wife moved to Bainbridge in 2001, as they felt it provided a better environment to raise their children in. During his first marriage, he was a resident of Tiburon, California.

Eszterhas has described himself as an "independent centrist", whose votes for president have included Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Independent Ross Perot, and Republicans George W. Bush and Donald Trump. He is a supporter of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. He has described himself as a staunch supporter of Israel.

Eszterhas began his career with a stint at the Dayton Journal Herald, before moving to The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, where he was one of the first reporters to cover the Kent State shootings in 1970. He and fellow Plain Dealer journalist Michael Roberts spent the next three months reporting on the story, and their work was published as the book Thirteen Seconds: Confrontation at Kent State. Eszterhas later joined the staff of Rolling Stone.

One of Eszterhas' articles for The Plain Dealer was the subject of a lawsuit. He had covered the aftermath of the collapse of a bridge across the Ohio River. It included a supposed interview of Margaret Cantrell, the widow of one of the fatal victims of the collapse. Months after the accident, he and a photographer visited her home. She was not there at the time, but he talked to the children as the photographer took photos. His Sunday magazine feature focused on the family's poverty and contained several inaccuracies. Eszterhas had made it seem as though he had spoken to her, describing her mood and attitude in the story. Cantrell filed suit for invasion of privacy, and won a $60,000 judgment. The decision was overturned in the Court of Appeals on First Amendment grounds but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the original award. Cantrell v. Forest City Publishing (1974) is one of only two false light cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.