The Dressmaker's Daughter
Adapted from my Young Adult novel published by Santa Monica Press in 2022. Romania 1940: A teenage girl studying to become a doctor, falls into a forbidden affair with her tutor. As war erupts, the Nazis invade and her family is killed, but a Romanian Iron Guard officer takes her as his concubine and sends her to nurse enemy soldiers. When her lover shows up with a group of partisans, she leads them through headquarters to kill two high-ranking Nazi guests of the officer. Her lover dies in the action but she escapes with the partisans sabotaging German supply lines.
When the Nazis invade Romania in July 1941, Mihail joins the partisans. The Count and Countess beg Daniela to flee to London with them, but she remains with her parents and brother—who are murdered within days. Alone, Daniela is sent east on the notorious Transnistrian Death March, where the Jews are murdered and robbed on their way to oblivion.
Daniela’s beauty catches the eye of Iron Guard commander, Major Dragulescu, and he forces her to be his concubine, sending her to nurse Romanian solders in the field hospital. The Romanians, Hitler's allies, are pulverized by the Red Army at Stalingrad but Daniela remains a hostage.
One night Mihail appears on a mission to assassinate two key Nazis visiting the major. They are associates of Eichmann, who is trying to ship Romania's surviving Jews to Auschwitz before Romania makes a separate peace with the Allies. Daniela leads the partisans into headquarters through a secret entrance.
In a pitched battle, the partisans kill the two Nazis and Major Dragulescu, but Mihail also dies. Broken-hearted, Daniela escapes with the partisans, who train her in sabotage and battle tactics. She throws herself into living on the run behind enemy lines, drawing courage from memories of Mihail and her family. When the partisans link up with the Red Army to attack German garrisons near the Ploesti oilfields, over 50,000 German prisoners are captured.
After the war, Daniela enters a Displaced Persons (DP) camp, where a friend of Count Kanyadi, recognizes her. He gets a message to London, and they arrange transport for Daniela.
The Count's luxurious townhouse seems like paradise, but Daniela only misses Mihail. Working as a nurse’s aide in a London hospital, she meets and marries brash American pilot ZIGGY BLOMBERG. In America, Ziggy grows wealthy as a building contractor, but his beautiful young wife remains haunted by her wartime experiences.
A young Benicio Del Toro
Stellan Skarsgård
Sophie's Choice
Europa Europa
Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in fiction in 2021 and 2016
I wrote the feature film, Murder in Fashion, about the shooting of designer Gianni Versace by serial killer Andrew Cunanan. The film played at theatres and festivals and was reviewed in the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/movies/22murder.html?_r=0
"Low budget but accurate and well constructed insight into a modern mystery" review by Richard von Lust L.
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