Jeffrey David Boam (November 30, 1946 – January 24, 2000) was an American screenwriter and film producer. He is known for writing the screenplays for The Dead Zone, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Innerspace, The Lost Boys, and Lethal Weapon 2 and 3. Boam's films had a cumulative gross of over US$1 billion. He was educated at Sacramento State College and UCLA. Boam died of heart failure on January 24, 2000, at age 53. Early life and education Boam was born in Rochester, New York. He grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, and his family moved to Sacramento, California, when he was 11. His father was an aeronautical engineer. He developed a taste for action films by watching World War II film on television as a child. As a teenager, he saw the film Tom Jones, which he said "made the greatest impression" on him, ultimately making him "want to be in movies." He attended Sacramento State College, earning a B.A. in art in 1969. While interested in the film industry, he initially thought that his art training would lead him to a career in art direction or production design. Not wanting to "serve in the ranks", he decided that directing would be most satisfying. He entered graduate school at UCLA film school, hoping to start a career in directing. He couldn't afford to pay for his own film, processing, and equipment. But he did own a typewriter, so he took a writing course and prepared to study screenwriting instead of directing. At UCLA, he took classes under Richard Walter. Boam took an advanced screenwriting class taught by William Froug. He decided to "target" Froug, hoping to impress the writing teacher into accepting him to be a directed studies student. Boam was impressed by Froug's success, and wanted one-on-one help. He said, "I just knew that Bill could help me, but I needed more than the slightly impersonal, two-hour-a-week instruction of the class." He gave Froug two screenplays for review, but the writing teacher wasn't impressed with either of them. This didn't deter Boam, who persisted. Boam told Froug, "Well, I'll just have to write better." Froug relented and started mentoring him, and said that over the semesters Boam got "better and better, but ... was still struggling." The two collaborated on a screenplay called Johnny, about the bank robber John Dillinger. On the day the screenplay was