William Osborne and Debra Hayward work with some of the world's top film stars but swapped Hollywood and London for North Norfolk. Now William is scripting himself a new career as children's novelist, writes ROWAN MANTELL.
The story would have been rejected as unrealistic if he had submitted it as a screenplay.
After deciding he would like to write for films William Osborne's first two scripts were bought for $1m apiece within days of his arrival in Hollywood.
He went on to create the dialogue spoken by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in Twins, and worked on more than 60 movies including the Bond film GoldenEye.
For 15 years William, of Glandford, near Holt, lived in Los Angeles and socialised with some of the biggest stars on the planet.
But back in Britain he had met film producer Debra Hayward, and returned home to continue his career alongside marriage and bringing up a family – and Debra's work on some of the best known movies of the past 20 years.
As their four children grew up, William began writing for them.
This month his second novel, Winter's Bullet, is published.
William spent much of his own childhood in Norfolk, attending Gresham's School in Holt before studying law at Cambridge University.
He began work in London as a barrister. 'And then I ran into someone I'd known at university,' said William. 'He was writing features for the Daily Mail. We had a drink and lunch and discovered that we both really wanted to be writing for films.'
So he and William Davies put together some ideas, and jetted off to LA.
It was not quite their first collaboration.
They had met as members of the Cambridge Footlights, where they acted alongside fellow students Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson.
When William wrote a radio play, straight out of university, Stephen and Hugh starred.
In Hollywood the two young English newcomers hit the kind of immediate success which would have been deleted from a film script as too far-fetched. 'The day after we arrived we met a producer who bought the two scripts on the spot and paid us quite a large sum of money!' said William.
'At the time we just thought this is how it works and weren't at all incredulous!
'And because you have just sold a script for a large sum of money, you are suddenly everybody's best friends.'
They were soon introduced to someone who wanted to make a film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
'So we sat on the beach for a couple of days and wrote Twins,' said William.
For the next 15 years William worked in LA. To date he has worked on more than 60 movies including The Scorpion King prequel to The Mummy films, Thunderbirds and Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot!
He specialised in action movies and comedies and said: 'You are not necessarily helping advance human civilisation but, at the same time, if you are sitting in a cinema, with everybody laughing, you are adding to the sum of human happiness.
Then, as I got into my late 40s, I thought these kind of things are best done by younger people. Your tastes change and what you want to write changes.'
What William, with his growing family, wanted to write was novels for older children and teenagers, set during the Second World War.
'I have always loved history, and when I was born, in 1960, the war had only been finished for 15 years. I grew up on films like the Dam Busters,' he said.
His first book, Hitler's Angel, tells the story of Otto and Leni who escape to England from Nazi Germany. They think they are safe, but are then sent back on a secret mission behind enemy lines, to find and kidnap a girl who could bring down Hitler.
The book was longlisted for the Carnegie Award and Bear Grylls called it 'An incredible adventure and great page turner!'
William's second novel, Winter's Bullet, is published by Chicken House this month and explores the idea that Hitler had plans for a weapon of mass destruction.
The story is set in Holland, where two teenagers battle to stop the war and save the world.
His third book will also be set during the Second World War, high in the Italian Alps.
Each story incorporates historical figures alongside fictional characters.
And William is continuing to write film scripts too.
He and Debra are currently adapting Mal Peet's acclaimed coming of age novel, Life: An Exploded Diagram for the big screen.
The novel was set in Norfolk by the North Walsham-based author, and William is keen that it should be filmed here too.
'Norfolk is not the backwater it was when I was growing up here in the 1970s,' said William. 'If you just dig beneath the surface there are lots of creative people and it's absolutely knee-deep in writers. I think writers like Norfolk because it's a great place for staring out of the window!'
He now lives just metres from his parents.
'Living in LA back in the 1990s was a great lifestyle and if you are busy and working successful it's a wonderful place to be, but I don't miss it at all,' said William. 'We initially came back to London, but always had holidays here.'
Now they have moved permanently to Norfolk, with their four children aged between 10 and 18 – and some future projects destined to bring just a little more Hollywood to the Holt area.
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