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Lost Chapter of Saturday Night Live Revealed

A new non-fiction book, `Nothing Lost Forever: The Films of Tom Schiller`, by first-time author and film historian Michael Streeter, tells the story of the man responsible for many of the most popular and famous Saturday Night Live skits and films. The book, covering a span of 30 years, provides a critical and analytical look at Schiller`s work, as well as behind-the-scenes stories of the first days of SNL. Famous personalities from the show, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Mike Myers and Lorne Michaels are among the extensive list of interviewees featured.

The book describes how Schiller developed Samurai Hotel, a sketch for John Belushi`s famous Samurai character, and how in 1978 he directed an ironic short film starring Belushi as a 90 year-old man who visits the graves of his Saturday Night Live cast mates. Of the short films of Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels says in the book: `It was the sort of thing that I was interested in. I think Tom`s [short films] were a large part of the fabric of what `That 70`s Show` was, in the same way that Andy Kaufman was. I think Tom is a genuine artist.`

The book describes in detail the trials and subsequent disappointment Schiller experienced during `Nothing Lasts Forever`, his first feature. Produced in 1982, the film starred Zach Galligan and Bill Murray and featured special appearances by Dan Aykroyd, Imogene Coca and Sam Jaffe. The black-and-white sci-fi comedy, with elements of social satire, was shelved by MGM following a corporate shuffle.

Recently, Bill Murray joined Tom Schiller and Michael Streeter at Lincoln Center`s Walter Reade Theater in New York for a special screening of `Nothing Lasts Forever`, and made a passionate plea to film executives to have the film finally released on DVD. `It just needs to be seen,` Murray says about `Nothing Lasts Forever`. `I always thought this was a movie that would be discovered sometime. It`s the kind of movie where people would be taken by it if they saw it,` says the Oscar-nominated actor.