Melissa Mathison, 65, Screenwriter Of ‘E.T.,’ ‘Black Stallion,’ ‘Kundun’

“[She] specialized in stories revolving around children. But, as she often said, she made a point of not condescending to them. ‘I go to movies with my children and see fat kids burping, parents portrayed as total morons, and kids being mean and materialistic, and I feel it’s really slim pickin’s out there,’ she [said] in 1995. ‘There’s a little dribble of a moral tacked on, but the story is not about that.'”