Storybeat with Steve Cuden Steve Cuden

What a wonderful fun and funny interview with a fellow who’s toiled at the highest peak of Hollywood as a screenwriter. TV and film writer, Steven Kunes, has worked on numerous sitcoms and movies.  At the age of 26, legendary TV producer, Norman Lear, hired Steven to write and develop half-hour comedies for his company, Embassy Television. This led to assignments in one-hour TV shows and eventually led him to motion pictures, where Steven became one of Hollywood's most successful script doctors. 
He's worked on TV shows like South Park, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Out of This World, Cheers, and on movies such as Catch Me If You Can, Legally Blonde, Cast Away, The Pelican Brief, Groundhog Day and more.  
In 2015, he created the hit comedy series Over My Dead Body, which streams on Amazon Prime. About Over My Dead Body Norman Lear said, "This is the best idea for a TV series that I can remember. It's absolutely hilarious." 
In 2021, Steven delivered a TEDx talk in Philadelphia entitled "Square One at 60.” 

Danielle Sunberg, a multi-award winning author and TEDx speaker, coaches high performers and advises social-impact organizations on authentic leadership. Specializing in conscious self-development, she guides individuals and groups to cultivate personal mastery as the key to experiencing our full potential. A former commercial litigator at a Washington D.C. law firm, Danielle's journey took a pivotal turn after successfully defending a client against a $6 billion judgment. Extreme burnout, stress, and overwhelm led to a diagnosis of depression, causing Danielle to leave her firm and travel six continents exploring how to create authentic well-being. Her exploration led to authoring her book, Atlas of Being, and founding a wellness CPG company that was publicly acquired in 2023, and her current work guiding high performers.

Noted author and teacher Andrew Erish’s first book, Col. William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented Hollywood, was hailed by the L.A. Public Library as “One of the best books of 2012.” And The Huffington Post declared, “…it may well be the film book of the year.” 
Andrew’s most recent book, Vitagraph, America’s First Great Motion Picture Studio, received the Peter C. Rollins Award for the best book of 2022 by the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association. 
I’ve read both of Andrew’s fascinating and entertaining books, and can tell you that, despite my having been a student of films and Hollywood for more years than I care to admit, I learned a great deal about the beginnings of the movies that I had no clue about. If you like knowing all about Hollywood, I highly recommend both books to you. 
Andrew also contributed five essays to American Cool, published in conjunction with an exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. And he’s written for various publications, including the Los Angeles Times and Quarterly Review of Film and Video.
Andrew has lectured at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the L.A. Central Library, Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, Santa Fe Film Festival, and the Shubert Archive in New York. In the United Kingdom, he’s lectured at the Oxford Literary Festival and London’s Cinema Museum. He’s also programmed films and was honored at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy. For several years he has taught film history at universities and colleges in the Los Angeles area. 

Rosanna Staffa is an Italian-born playwright and author.  Her debut novel, The War Ends At Four, is a beautifully rendered tale about an Italian acupuncturist in Minneapolis who returns home to Milan and rediscovers all that she left behind, who she is, and what her life is really about. I’ve read The War Ends at Four and found it to be a moving and poignant personal story about a woman trying to find herself.  I highly recommend it to you. 
Rosanna’s work has been featured in Gargoyle Magazine, the Brevity Nonfiction Blog, The Sun Magazine, The Examined Life Journal, and JuxtaProse. Her essay, Holy, is a prize winner in the TSR Review and nominated for the 2022 Notable in Best American Essays. Other writing can be found in the Best Small Fictions Anthology 2021. She received an Honorable Mention for The Tiferet Journal’s 2019 Writing Contest. She’s also a Short Story Finalist for The Masters Review Anthology, the 47th New Millennium Writing Awards, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. 
Rosanna’s plays, which have been seen on stages in Tokyo, New York, Seattle, and other cities, include: The Biggest Little House and The Innocence of Ghosts which was staged Off-Broadway in New York and filmed for inclusion in the Lincoln Center Theatre on Film Library. 
Rosanna also happens to be a licensed Acupuncturist from the California Acupuncture College in L.A. and The Zhejiang College of Acupuncture in Hangzhou, China.
 www.rosannastaffa.com
Rosanna’s plays are published by Heinemann and Smith & Kraus. 

This is Charles Rosenay’s second time on StoryBeat. He’s been in the entertainment business for over four decades as an actor, promoter, music aficionado, entertainer, MC, DJ, humorist, and author.
Recently, he released his latest book, The Book of Top 10 Beatles Lists, which contains dozens of top ten lists from pop-culture notables, like Pete Best, Dick Cavett, Tommy Chong, Melanie, and even Dave Winfield, all laying out their favorite songs by the Beatles, who are, for me, the greatest rock band of all time. 
Among all of his other accomplishments, Charles has produced Beatles Conventions and Festivals since 1978, and he’s been the organizer and host of the “Magical History Tour” since 1983, bringing Beatles fans to Liverpool and London. 
Charles published and edited the magazine, “Good Day Sunshine, one of the world’s most famous Beatles/Sixties magazines. He has also promoted Monkees conventions since the early ‘80s. 
As an MC, Charles has shared the stage with countless entertainment figures, including Charles Grodin, Geraldo Rivera, and the late Danny Aiello. 
For the record, Steve was part of a group that Charles led on an outstanding Dracula tour of Transylvania. Charles also leads GHOSTours in England.

         Terry Press recently joined Amblin Partners in the newly created role of President of Strategy and Communications. Terry oversees the execution of all elements of marketing, publicity, consumer products, and communication for the film and television divisions of Amblin Partners and Steven Spielberg, who said of Terry, “Since the earliest days of DreamWorks, Terry has been a vital part of our DNA, championing our films with her marketing expertise and passion for film. Her reputation in the industry for excellence is well known and we have a long-shared history of great experiences together.”
           Terry also continues in her role as a consultant at Turner Classic Movies, where Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson advise the channel. 
Recent movies that Terry has worked on with Mr. Spielberg include: The Fabelmans, West Side Story, Lincoln, The Post, and Amblin/Universal’s award-winning 1917.
            Previously, Terry was President of CBS Films, where she oversaw the production, marketing, and distribution of such titles as: The Woman in Black, The Duff, Last Vegas, Hell or High Water, At Eternity’s Gate, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis, and Ron Howard’s documentary, Pavarotti.
            Prior to forming the branding, publicity, strategy, and media and digital positioning company, 7570, Inc., Terry served for ten years as the Head of Marketing for DreamWorks SKG where she oversaw the campaigns for all live-action and animated features, including Saving Private Ryan, American Beauty, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, and Shrek, which won the first Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
            Terry began her career with a nine-year stint at the Walt Disney Company and Walt Disney Studios.
For several years, she taught marketing at UCLA (which is her alma mater, and for the record, mine, too). Recently, alongside Scott Feinberg, Terry was a guest instructor at Chapman University, Dodge College.
Terry also happens to be married to a favorite StoryBeat guest, the brilliant writer, and photographer, Andy Marx.