Screenwriter/ Producer Gregory Allen Howard Dies at 70 - Wrote Remember The Titans, Ali, Harriet
Deadline reports that Gregory Allen Howard, the first African American screenwriter for a $100 million drama with Remember The Titans, died today in Miami after a brief illness, his publicist said. He was 70.
Howard also was the only African American screenwriter to write a spec script that became a $100 million movie, also for Remember the Titans, which starred Denzel Washington and was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.
His credits included Ali, starring Will Smith and Jamie Foxx, directed by Michael Mannas, as well as the award-winning stage play Tinseltown Trilogy. Howard was a two-time winner of the NAACP Image Awards, and also won the Christopher Award, the Howard University Paul Robeson Award for artistic excellence, and the Heartland Film Festival Award for screenwriting excellence.
Harriet, originally titled Freedom Fire, was Howard’s first feature assignment more than 28 years ago at Disney. Eventually, the movie was made and starred Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Janelle Monae and Joe Alwyn, with direction by Kasi Lemmons.
As a writer and producer, Greg wrote The Harlem Renaissance, a limited series for HBO; Misty, the story of prima ballerina Misty Copeland for New Line Cinema. He also wrote This Little Light, the Fannie Lou Hamer story for Chris Columbus’s 1492 Pictures. Most recently, he wrote the civil rights project Power to the People for producer Ben Affleck and Paramount Pictures.