Trevanian was born in El Dorado, Arkansas in 1947. He became a film student at the University of Southern California, but dropped out after failing to get into the school of his choice, the University of California at Los Angeles. He went on to make his first film, The Killing Kind (1975), in which he played the lead role opposite Jessica Walter. After The Killing Kind, Trevanian moved to Hollywood and lived in a small apartment in which he wrote screenplays without success
Read more
During this period he also worked as a writer for television shows such as The Love Boat, Dallas, Dynasty, and The A-Team. His screenplay for the 1977 thriller Charley Varrick was later rewritten by William Goldman into the novel The Long Goodbye. In 1981 Trevanian moved to New York City to pursue his writing career.
He continued to write screenplays for television shows including Simon & Simon and Murder She Wrote, but none were produced for production. His screenplay Spinning Gold was produced by Robert Evans but failed at the box office. Trevanian spent much of his time living off royalties from his earlier novels Manhunter and Charley Varrick which had been adapted into films by Michael Mann and Peter Bogdanovich respectively.
By 1991 Trevanian's financial situation had deteriorated to the point that he was forced to sell his story about Satanism called Hellfire Club for $250,000 to Paramount Pictures just before Christmas 1991. This money was used to finance Spinning Gold (1992) which was released by Warner Bros..