You mentioned you worked in this world and it shows! The script’s atmosphere is incredibly engaging and realistic. How much of your personal experiences did you use in this story?
First and most importantly, thank you to The World Film Festival at Cannes for this honor. I’m humbled, truly.
Thank you for commenting on how it shows! I was striving for realism. The 1980s were sincerely as aggressively materialistic as history says, and we Yuppies were really THAT cocky & incorrigible. We were pricks.
I was 31 years old in October 1987, advising my clients on how to invest more money than I personally did not possess until my mid-60s. Initially I was shocked people listened to me when I joined the firm four years earlier, yet in just a year I was comfortable in my role.
My education was a B.S. in mechanical engineering magna cum laude. Laid off into a recession at the tender age of 26 with a mortgage and a daughter on the way, I learned quickly to move decisively. Engineering jobs were non-existent in 1983, so I went with the Hot Hand – Wall Street. The stress was palpable and never let up. I could take the stress because I was young & clueless, calming down with exercise followed by a few beers every night.
A stockbroker’s value to the firm was determined solely by the fees we produced. Of the fifteen stockbrokers in my office, I was a middler – not the best and not the worst. Even with my middler status, in 1986 & 1987 my earnings exceeded engineers by two thirds.
Example: in 1986 I was offered a lucrative engineering job, relocating to New Jersey from West Virginia, and I respectfully called The Golden Handcuffs.
The story’s setting in Pittsburgh is an essential facet to how go-go Reaganomics shuffled blue collar union workers to the back of the figurative bus. I was the first white-collar guy in my family; my father was secretary-treasurer of his railroad union local for 19 years. My alma mater – West Virginia University – was an hour from Pittsburgh. I worked in engineering sales for two Pittsburgh companies. Western Pennsylvania is spirited, without a doubt. I know the city well. I love Pittsburgh.
Your script deals with the wild world of stock market in the 1980s. How much would you say this world has changed?
The most significant changes have been the result of the flow & accessibility of information due to major advancements in technology.
In 1987, CNN had just recently begun to offer business news regularly. Just a year before, the only daily stock market news came from the Public Broadcasting System. Ted Turner changed that.
Stockbrokers in the 1980s had ALL the information & data. We were the only source.
Amazingly, I as a 68 year old derivatives trader – just like Edie – have much more access to data on just my smartphone than I had on my IBM desktop as a 31 year old Wall Street professional.
I can buy & sell through Fidelity for cheap fees; seeing this coming, I resigned from Wall Street in 1990 and became an engineer again. My timing was rather good.
Did you base any of the characters on yourself?
Much of Mason is me. It’s easier to discuss the aspects that were not me:
- I chose not to play college football, despite being recruited particularly by the United States Naval Academy; I was too small and too slow. God was my guide, because at age 68 I’m healthy and pain-free. I most assuredly DID hit like 88, so I would have probably been killed.
- I taught freshman engineering at West Virginia University.
- I was married.
- I worked for only one firm – Wheat First Securities.
That all being said, Mason and I were alike primarily in that we pissed off our peers; bullshit was distasteful to me.
Claudia’s unabashed optimism is me. Claudia and I would have tried to steer the Titanic into port. Claudia is “never say die”; so am I.
It’s interesting to mention Chaz & Darrell. They were walking, talking clichés. Wall Street in the 1980s was driven by How It Looked. I worked alongside guys – yep, women were scarce – who went to all the right schools: preppies like Sidwell Friends & Woodberry Forest then the Ivy Leagues such as Columbia, Princeton, Penn, Cornell, and the Almost Ivys like University of Virginia, University of Richmond, and University of North Carolina, and Duke.
The alums were handsome AF. I had lost my football weight, so the fiancée of one of my biggest women clients appropriately called me Alex P. Keaton. I was the doppelganger of Michael J. Fox.
Darrell was real, and how ridiculous he was! The Pollyanna director of investment strategy who ALWAYS had to be positive, like what goes up must go up more. He therefore missed Black Monday completely.
The guy I followed, and still follow, is Jeffrey Saut, the antithesis of Darrell. Jeff was an analyst in Wheat’s option strategy with whom I spoke like 5 minutes every week. That’s all I needed; Jeff is a genius who went over Darrell’s head, interviewed with Dow Jones publication Barron’s on October 4 1987, and was quoted in print saying “The Party Is Over.”
Two weeks later? Black Monday. Darrell’s envy got Jeff fired from Wheat in 1989. I found Jeff in 2019 and reconnected. He’s celebrated as a guru. Every October 19th I send Jeff a Happy Anniversary email. Jeff CALLED IT like a modern-day Nostradamus.
This is a tricky subject and not everyone might connect with it, but you found an accessible way to tell this story. How difficult would you say it is to write about this topic for a wide audience?
Thank you for that! I’m thrilled I found a way that worked.
American Money is based on my second novel Risk, Return, and the Indigo Autumn. That novel is maybe 300 pages over which the story unfolds. With American Money, I had an hour and 50 minutes to tell the story. That required 13 rewrites.
Did any film inspire you to write this screenplay? If so, which one?
Interestingly, Wall Street (1987) and Margin Call (2011) were not nearly the inspiration that The Big Short (2015) was. I read Michael Lewis’ book The Big Short FOUR times, so when I saw the Paramount film I said to myself, “Since they pulled off explaining THAT clusterF, I can tell my much simpler story.”
What is your next writing challenge?
I have two film scripts I’m working on:
- Peace Of Mind is based on my true story.
- Padre Guns is adapted from my 2001 novel Wise Fools.
As well, Cadillac America lurks in my mind, inspired by my fellow Ford Mustang custodian Jeff Simpson.
Thirty-three years of writing have taught me it’s all about The Journey. I’m honored & humbled by the recognition The World Film Festival in Cannes has provided me, yet it’s like race car driver Ken Miles told automobile designer Carroll Shelby right after he was robbed of the victory in the 1966 Le Mans:
“Carroll, you didn’t promise me the win. You delivered on your promise for The Ride.”
Tomorrow, I’m taking Padre Guns out on the road. It IS INDEED all about The Journey. Thank you for the thrills.
What is your vision of post-Covid cinema?
Internet film distribution platforms abound for private viewing, yet I believe the Cinema Experience in a Theatre is possible.
A feature film allows the storyteller two hours to tell the story. When one walks into a cinema and sits, the storytellers – beginning with the screenwriter’s story conveyed by the actors and directors and producers – take that person on a journey.
It’ll always be important to embark on and complete that journey in a cinema.
BIO
About Timothy A. McGhee
Timothy A. McGhee has been writing since 1998, with a life as rich and diverse as the stories he tells. A former mechanical engineer and Wall Street stockbroker, he has published two novels and contributed to several sports journalism outlets over the years.
His debut screenplay, American Money, is based on his second novel, Risk, Return, and the Indigo Autumn, originally released on Apple iBooks in 2006. His first novel, Wise Fools, was published in 2001 by Writer’s Club Press and is currently being adapted into a film titled Padre Guns.
He is also developing a screenplay called Peace Of Mind, based on a true story, and has more projects in the pipeline, including Cadillac America.
As a sportswriter, McGhee has written for Hard Rock Sports, The Football Network, Lindy’s, and Bleacher Report (2007–2012).
Professionally, he spent over three decades as a mechanical engineer (1980–1982, 1990–2020), seven years as a stockbroker (1983–1990), and even worked recently as a school janitor and teacher’s aide (2023–2024).
For Timothy A. McGhee, “it’s all about the journey” — a philosophy that defines both his personal path and creative work.
