Add more boys,” the network executive said bluntly when producer Jane Startz offered him a series based on the hugely popular “Baby-sitters Club” books about seven female best friends who start a baby-sitting service. “Girls will watch a TV show about boys.”
Startz could have compromised, but she responded with a firm “No!”
“Ann Martin wrote a wonderful series that tapped into something important for preteen girls,” the vice president of Scholastic says of the 100-plus “Baby-sitters Club” titles, which have sold more than 100 million copies so far.
“We wanted to keep the integrity of the project, which was aimed at girls and was about girls.
“I’m optimistic or naive enough now to think you can do a story that features a girl as a hero. I’m doing movies based on good literary works. I wouldn’t change a girl to a boy, although that’s exactly what Hollywood would have told me to do 20 years ago. Heroes can be any gender.”
Startz, co-founder of Scholastic’s film production division, still gets incensed by the memory of that 5-year-old conversation.
“The networks weren’t prepared to find out whether boys would watch anything to do with girls,” she recalls. “But you don’t know it doesn’t work till you try it.”
HBO agreed and produced 13 half-hour episodes, which ran on the network and currently are available on video.
Now Startz is standing in the middle of Los Angeles’ Griffith Park in her basketball shoes, black pants, gray-and-white patterned jacket and baseball cap, overseeing a big-screen version of “The Baby-sitters Club.”
Opening Aug. 18, the film stars seven young actresses, including Sissy Spacek’s 12-year-old daughter, Schuyler Fisk, along with Ellen Burstyn, Brooke Adams and Peter Horton.
Again Startz had to fight off suggestions such as “You’ll have to add boys, and it will have to have a lot of action like `Home Alone.’ “
But again she found supporters–Lisa Henson, president of Columbia Pictures, and Armyan Bernstein, president of Beacon Pictures, who are financing the $6.5 million film in conjunction with Scholastic Productions.
It’s not that Startz has anything against boys. She has a 15-year-old son, Jesse, and two daughters, 13-year-old Kate and 7-year-old Zoe.
“We do have the boys that are in the books,” she says. “The girls have boyfriends and friends who are guys. They live in a rich and full world.
“Until lately, the message from Hollywood has been that there was no audience for girls’ movies or women’s movies. This was pre-`Thelma and Louise.’ `The Secret Garden’ did well, and `Little Women’ was a real turning point. It proved that there is an audience for good stories, well-acted, with something to say. But there is still a dearth in any medium of girls being successful.”
Women such as Startz are helping to change that.
“In my limited experience, I’d say that having more female executives running a studio does make a difference,” she says. “Take Lisa Henson. She is obviously committed to bringing women’s films to the screen. She did `Little Women,’ and she’s given opportunities to women . Lisa is a supporter and a good businesswoman, plus she’s very smart and very focused. She’ll leave a mark.”
So will Startz, who would like to have some impact on developing young women’s self-esteem.
“Those studies by Carol Gilligan having to do with self-esteem in adolescence were completely valid,” she says.
Gilligan is a Harvard psychologist who wrote “In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development” (1982) and “Making Connections: The Relational Worlds of Adolescent Girls at Emma Willard School” (1990).
“When girls reach adolescence, they have biological changes, social pressures and raging hormones. They become very concerned with pleasing boys and figuring out their place in the world. They find it difficult to be assertive and successful.”
Recalling herself at 13, Startz says: “My mother was my role model at that time. She was a teacher and a curriculum coordinator. My grandmother ran a paint and wallpaper store. My role models have been women out in the world, being successful in life and feeling good about themselves.
“I’ve always been incredibly focused, and it’s hard for me to think I ever slowed down. I was a dancer and a pianist. I don’t remember giving things up because I was feeling bad about myself.
“But the way adolescent girls respond to social pressure can be devastating. They really do want to be liked. They’re bridge-builders and collaborators and team players at their own expense.
“When I was told I was too much of a team player, I was flabbergasted. My husband is a sensitive guy. I think it’s important to let someone else win sometimes.”
Startz grew up in Manhattan, where she still lives, and planned to be a teacher.
“I’ve always been interested in education,” she says. “My sister, my cousins and my aunts are teachers. I was accepted at Columbia University to get my doctorate in English.”
What happened? “I graduated early from Skidmore and got involved in being an apprentice to a film editor,” she says. “I loved to dance, play the piano, paint and write. Once I got involved in film, I realized it was a great way to combine my interests. I also have a social conscience, so I felt it was important to be able to affect people by what I did.”
Now in her mid-40s, Startz joined Scholastic Inc. in 1971. “I started out doing filmstrips for children,” she says. “Then I began producing TV shows and videos.”
In 1980, she and Marty Keltz started Scholastic Productions Inc.
“Our plan was to do a media library,” Startz recalls. “We’d come up with titles we could own and control for home video. We knew we had an incredible audience. We started out with After School Specials. Now those stories could be feature films, but then the market didn’t exist.”
Her credits include the current “Magic School Bus” series on PBS, the series “Charles in Charge” and such family dramas as “The Great Love Experiment,” “The Incredible Ida Early,” “The Beniker Gang,” “The Truth About Alex” and “The Lawrenceville Stories.”
“We have a wonderful body of literature at Scholastic,” Startz says. “But until the success of `Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’ and `Home Alone,’ family films weren’t viable.
“It’s a logical move for Scholastic to make these films. We know the audience. The company has been there for 75 years, and there’s constant feedback through our books and magazines. For instance, we got tremendous mail from `The Baby-sitters Club’ videos.”
Eighteen months ago, Scholastic decided it was time to make feature films. In addition to “The Baby-sitters Club,” Startz put into production “The Indian in the Cupboard,” an adventure story based on the best-selling Lynne Reid Banks’ children’s book.
Loaded with special effects, the $40-million-plus Paramount film is directed by Frank Oz and co-produced by Steven Spielberg associates Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall.
“My interests aren’t only involved with projects for girls,” Startz says. “My ideal movie is about relationships. `The Indian in the Cupboard’ is an adventure story about magic, but it’s also about friendships that cross age, race and time. It’s about having dreams come to reality through the wonders of your imagination and magic.”
Even though it stars boys, the film was just as difficult as “The Baby-sitters Club” to get into production.
“It took almost eight years from when I optioned it,” Startz says. “They originally weren’t doing children’s movies.”
Both movies will be out this summer, and both were shot in Hollywood, which meant that Startz had to spend many days away from her family.
“I’d fly back to New York every Friday night on the red-eye,” she says, “and I’d come back on an 8 a.m. flight Monday morning. My kids love what I do and are very involved with it because they’re passionate about movies.”
Like all working mothers, Startz has had her share of difficulties.
“I’m in the midst of a help crisis,” she says. “We’ve had the same baby-sitter for 15 years, but she just recently moved back to Barbados. Luckily my husband works at home, and his office is in our building.”
At the moment Startz has no plans to move to Hollywood, although she has many projects in development there. She also has plenty of work to do at her office in New York.
“I feel I’m a mentor to younger women at Scholastic,” Startz says.
She likes the idea of helping those around her. In fact, do-gooder that she is, she wonders, “Why bother to be alive if you can’t provide opportunities for people who wouldn’t have them otherwise?”
