 Luminous Films Beth Brickell, President of Luminous Films, began her film career as an actress, training in New York with Sanford Meisner, Lee Strasberg and membership in the legendary Actors Studio. She performed in leading roles in over 25 stage productions in and out of the city. Moving to Hollywood, she starred for two seasons in the popular CBS adventure series, “Gentle Ben”, with Dennis Weaver and Clint Howard. Subsequently she guest starred on some 100 TV shows and movies, receiving Emmy consideration for roles on “Bonanza” and “Hawaii 5-0”. She starred or co-starred in three motion pictures, "POSSE" with Kirk Douglas and Bruce Dern, "DEATH GAME" with Sondra Locke and Seymour Cassell, and "THE ONLY WAY HOME" with Bo Hopkins. She put her acting career aside to accept a Director Fellowship at the American Film Institute Conservatory in Los Angeles, from which she graduated with an MFA in film directing and screenwriting. She has written, produced and/or directed a dozen films and TV episodes. Currently she is promoting three feature screenplays she has written: "MIKE AND MAUD" and "BLACK CADILLAC", were double winners of the 2023 Screencraft True Crime Screenplay Competition. The riveting true story is of a woman lawyer and community leader, Maud Crawford, who disappeared mysteriously from her home in a small town in Arkansas in 1957. Her disappearance was international news when it happened because the number one news story at the time was of US Senator John McClellan, from the same town and law firm, who was chairman of a high profile senate investigation of mob influences in organized labor. The first assumption was that the Mafia must have kidnapped McClellan's former law associate to intimidate the senator into backing off his investigation. When, instead, all evidence pointed to a local Arkansas State Police Commissioner having had Maud Crawford murdered over an inheritance dispute, local police declared the case "at a dead end" after four days, and the state police took their detective off the case in two weeks. No further investigation took place for 30 years until Beth Brickell returned to her hometown to write a screenplay about the mystery. Having a newspaper background, she spent 16 months investigating the case, and wrote an 18-article investigative series about her findings that the Pulitzer-prize winning state newspaper, the Arkansas Gazette, printed on its front page over a five month period. Over the yesrs, Brickell has continued to uncover details about the case and has written and published four books about it. Now that she has learned the final piece of the puzzle, what they did with Crawford's body, she has written the above two screenplays about the crime and her investigation.
"MR. CHRISTMAS", a movie written, produced and directed by Brickell starring Jace McLean and Jen Celene Little, won “Best Family Film” at Hollywood’s Moondance Film Festival, and an “Award of Excellence” from the Film Advisory Board in Los Angeles. The movie has been broadcast on PBS and Starz, and is now streaming on Prime Video, You Tube, Apple TV and Roku. Brickell directed episodes of the CBS series “Knots Landing”, and wrote, produced and directed short films "LITTLE BOY BLUE", starring Chynna Phillips and Robert Walden, and "TO TELL THE TRUTH". She developed the story for a CBS movie “A Family Matter”, and a four-part series for PBS, “Susan B,” about Susan B. Anthony and the 19 th century women’s movement. Brickell’s civic activities have included Chair of the DGA Women’s Committee, member of the DGA Special Projects Committee, Board of Directors for Women in Film, Emmy Awards Panel for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Grant Committee for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Actors Studio-West Executive Steering Committee, Screening Committee for the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and the James Bridges Scholarship Committee at the University of Central Arkansas. She has been honored with membership in the Arkansas Entertainment Hall of Fame and the Southwest Theatre & Film Hall of Fame in Denton, Texas. |
