Patti Smith: Just Kids autobiography to be a major motion picture

Patti Smith: The wordsmith of song and story adds ‘screenwriter’ to her credits.

With her revealing autobiography Just Kids, Patti Smith penned an ode to her former lover and friend, the late Robert Mapplethorpe, and the 1970s New York art scene of legend, with its Chelsea Hotel and punk rockers. The book, published in 2010, won the National Book Award and was on the New York Times bestseller list for 37 weeks.

Now Smith will turn her story into a screenplay with the help of playwright John Logan, who won the Tony Award for the play Red and wrote the films Gladiator and The Aviator. Ms. Smith has written for the stage (she cowrote the 1971 play Cowboy Mouth with Sam Shepherd), but this is her first foray into screenwriting.

Mr. Mapplethorpe took the iconic photograph of Ms. Smith for the cover of her 1975 album Horses. The controversial photographs he took later in his career were the target of conservative and religious groups.

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, Smith is known for rejuvenating the rock scene with her poetic, heretical, garage-band aesthetic.

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