{"id":11197,"date":"2012-03-29T10:19:58","date_gmt":"2012-03-29T14:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=11197"},"modified":"2012-03-29T10:22:49","modified_gmt":"2012-03-29T14:22:49","slug":"hollywood-loses-a-quiet-giant-of-the-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/03\/hollywood-loses-a-quiet-giant-of-the-faith","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood loses a quiet giant of the faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tributes are pouring in on the Internet to a quiet man of faith who believed that prime time television \u2013 the world of sit-coms and cop dramas and reality shows \u2013 could be used of God to change the world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Jack Gilbert<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jack Gilbert, 62, mentor to a generation of TV and film writers, died March 26 in Los Angeles of complications from pneumonia. For many years, Jack ran the script writing training program for Warner Brothers, teaching television writing. More recently, he was a\u00a0fixture at Act One, a Hollywood mentoring program that trains screenwriters who yearn to impact the entertainment industry from Christian points of view.<\/p>\n

Some of\u00a0those who learned at Jack\u2019s knee include Dean Batali (That \u201870s Show), Clare Sera (Curious George, The Princess Diaries), Barbara Hall (Law & Order, Judging Amy, Joan of Arcadia), Carl Rogers (The Blind Side, The Book of Eli), Janet Scott Batchlor (Batman Forever), Melissa Glenn (the new Hawaii Five-O and Leverage), Ben Lobato, (The Unit, Justified), Cheryl McKay (The Ultimate Gift), Nathan Scoggins (The Least of These) and Kurt Schemper (Intervention).<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cHe always showed up wearing something from the WB: a tie with Bugs Bunny, a shirt with a Daffy logo,\u201d remembers movie reviewer Rebecca Cusey<\/a>. \u201cJack was a Christian working in Hollywood at a time when Evangelicalism looked down its long nose at anything with even a whiff of Hollywood. \u00a0He was one of the lucky few talented and dedicated enough to actually make a living in Hollywood. He loved stories and made them his life\u2019s work. He loved God and wasn\u2019t afraid that made him uncool in a town where cool equals money.”<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to be uncool in Hollywood, however, identify with Christianity. It\u2019s not so much that people dislike Christians in the industry, although some surely do, but that a person of faith is so extremely far outside their experience that one might as well be from Saudi Arabia or Mars.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf any of that ever bothered Jack, he never showed it. He didn\u2019t hide his faith from the mainstream, just as he didn\u2019t hide the mainstream from his faith. He also served as a scriptwriting teacher for Act One, a Christian script-writing program training people for mainstream Industry jobs. I came to know him through it and our mutual appreciation for story and art in today\u2019s world.”<\/p>\n

He was also a visiting\u00a0instructor at\u00a0Regent University in Virginia Beach, Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles, and Columbia College in Illinois.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJack stood in a lonely gap,” continues Cusey.\u00a0“On one hand, he represented faith to the Industry. On the other, he tirelessly explained to young, dewy-eyed believers that, no, there was no one magic movie that would change everything and save the world. That, yes, one had to be willing to slave in the bowels of silly or unsavory TV shows to earn enough respect to have a voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Facebook, the tributes to Jack are full of memories:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are men and women who do great things for vast numbers of people who they will never meet. Then there are the Jack Gilberts of the world \u2013 those who do incredible & compassionate things for people on a one to one, face to face level. I wonder how many people consider Jack\u2019s passing last night as one of the worst moments of their lives? I\u2019ll bet it\u2019s in the hundreds,\u201d wrote one former student.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so sad that we have lost his guidance and enthusiasm,\u201d wrote another, \u201cbut grateful that I had the opportunity to get to know him. He was a man of immense faith, and I\u2019m happy that his battle here is over. He is missed already.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost one of the good ones today,\u201d reads another post. \u201cJack was a friend and writing mentor of mine, as well as to hundreds of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA wise and gentle mentor to many writers and storytellers,\u201d added somebody else, \u201cand a man who knew that all our little stories were somehow about the one big story.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tributes are pouring in on the Internet to a quiet man of faith who believed that prime time television \u2013 the world of sit-coms and cop dramas and reality shows \u2013 could be used of God to change the world. Jack Gilbert, 62, mentor to a generation of TV and film writers, died March 26…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,184],"tags":[2017,325,2016,318],"class_list":["post-11197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","category-entertainment","tag-act-one","tag-hollywood","tag-jack-gilbert","tag-television"],"yoast_head":"\nHollywood loses a quiet giant of the faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/03\/hollywood-loses-a-quiet-giant-of-the-faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hollywood loses a quiet giant of the faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tributes are pouring in on the Internet to a quiet man of faith who believed that prime time television \u2013 the world of sit-coms and cop dramas and reality shows \u2013 could be used of God to change the world. 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