Jerry Stahl (born September 28, 1953) is an American novelist and screenwriter. His works include the 1995 memoir of addiction Permanent Midnight. A 1998 film adaptation followed with Ben Stiller in the lead role. Stahl has worked extensively in film and television. Early life Stahl grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His family is Jewish. His father, David Henry Stahl, emigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union; he served a term as Attorney General of Pennsylvania and was later appointed as a federal judge. David had previously worked as a coal miner. At the age of 16, Stahl was sent to a boarding prep school near Philadelphia. He attended Columbia University. Post-college he traveled, living in Greece—in caves outside of Matala, on Crete, the streets of Paris, then London, where he landed a job as a bartender at an Irish pub. He later returned to America to live in New York City, where he became a writer. Career Stahl began publishing short fiction, won a Pushcart Prize in 1976 for a story that first appeared in Transatlantic Review, and made a living writing for magazines and doing porn stories for cash. One writing job as humor editor for Hustler meant moving to Columbus, Ohio and living at the YMCA until the magazine moved its headquarters to California. Stahl lost his job six months to the day after taking it and ended up on unemployment in California, alongside an escalating heroin dependency, which eventually led to his contracting hepatitis C. He would go on to become a writer for the 1980s TV series ALF, Thirtysomething, and Moonlighting. In 1990 he would also write an episode each for Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure; his work on the former was described by series co-creator Mark Frost as "an absolute car wreck... He turned in a completely incomprehensible, unusable, incomplete script a few days late and as I recall there were blood stains on it." He has also acted in seven films. Permanent Midnight, his 1995 memoir, was adapted by Stahl into a 1998 film of the same name starring Ben Stiller that raised Stahl's profile and set the stage for his ongoing work in film. He wrote the screenplay for Bad Boys II, which starred Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. His novels Perv: A Love Story and Plainclothes Naked enjoyed moderate success. I, Fatty, a fictional autobiography of legendary movie comedian Roscoe