watch the city recording itself, playing itself back to itself and marketing that image to itself. We eavesdrop on the culture's conversation with itself. We're watching people decide how they want to see themselves and how they want to sell themselves." Production Screenplay The original screenplay for Nashville was written by Joan Tewkesbury, who had collaborated with Altman on several of his films, including McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) and Thieves Like Us (1974). She had proposed a Nashville-set film to Altman prior to his filming of McCabe & Mrs. Miller; he became interested in the setting and sent Tewkesbury to Nashville in the fall of 1973 to observe the area and its citizenry. Tewkesbury's diary of her trip provided the basis for the screenplay, with many observations making it into the finished film, such as the highway pileup. However, as with most Altman projects, much of the dialogue was improvised with the script acting as a "blueprint" dictating the actions of the characters and the plot. Tewkesbury, who was working as an instructor at the University of Southern California, rewrote her screenplay several times. In the original draft, the film opened with a scene featuring Tom on the street in New York City prior to his arrival in Nashville. Tewkesbury had been partly inspired to write the film based on her observations of the music industry being geographically "pulled apart. The country-western thing had suddenly exploded in Nashville, but [musicians] still had to come to New York for getting paid, and business deals." None of Tewkesbury's incarnations of the screenplay featured any death scenes, but Altman, who had a "penchant for the tragic denouement", proposed the idea that Barbara Jean would be assassinated in the finale. Numerous characters in Nashville are based on real country music figures: Henry Gibson's Haven Hamilton is a composite of Roy Acuff, Hank Snow, and Porter Wagoner; Ronee Blakley's Barbara Jean is based on Loretta Lynn; the black country singer Tommy Brown (played by Timothy Brown) is based on Charley Pride; and the feuding folk trio is based on Peter, Paul and Mary; within the trio, the married couple of Bill and Mary were inspired by Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, who later became Starland Vocal Band. Keith Carradine's character is believed to be inspired by Kris Kristofferson, and Karen Black's Connie White was conceived as a composite of Lynn Anderson (who spoke unfavorably