One of San Quentin’s strongest friends is Anna Phelan, the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Gorillas in the Mist, and Mask, who has been supporting the prison’s television operation for many years.
The first time Phelan came to San Quentin the word she used to describe her experience was “clarity.”
“I just thought, ‘Oh my God; people don’t know,’” Phelan said. “I mean, all of these people incarcerated.”
Phelan made her first trip to San Quentin in 1991. She said that coming to the prison obviously had an enormous effect on her because she keeps coming back
“I come back to volunteer and do interviews trying to raise money for the TV station here,” said Phelan.
During her first visit, Phelan met with Lt. Vernell Crittendon, who at that time was San Quentin’s public relations officer; television specialist Larry Schneider and the SQTV production team.
What hooked her, Phelan said, were all the incarcerated people she saw, because afterwards she went home “confused and messed up.”
“I felt I had to do something,” said Phelan “That was the start of it–just being aware of the prison industrial complex.”
Phelan said she saw the prisoners’ brainpower — some good and maybe some not so good — and felt she had to do something. For over 20 years, Phelan has volunteered her movie making skills from filmmaking to script writing to help the men of San Quentin improve themselves.
“The way to start to turn it around is to have people from the outside come in and give their expertise to the incarcerated,” Phelan said. “So the inmate may have a chance out there.”
Through her efforts as a volunteer Phelan has brought other celebrities to San Quentin, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Taylor Branch, film director Martha Coolidge, and Paula Walker a commercial director and winner of the Cannes Silver Lion Award.
“The fact that I brought my son in here to volunteer underlies how important I think volunteers are,” Phelan said. “It comes down to just taking care of people, whether your family or complete strangers.”
Phelan put her beliefs of helping complete strangers into action while living in Santa Monica when 15-year-old Jonathan McDonald was arrested for stealing her Jeep Cherokee.
“I had to go to court and testify and when I took a look at that young man, I thought about this kid and my experience at San Quentin.”
Had it not been for her experience at San Quentin, Phelan said she probably would not have testified in McDonald’s favor.
“I saw him and I thought something had to be done, so after he was sent to a youth facility in Lancaster, I contacted him,” Phelan said.
Phelan said as little girl growing up, she always felt somewhat odd and alien from the rest of the world, and that she has always been attracted to stories about people who are alienated or at least feel alienated from everyone else.”
After getting approval from his counselor, Phelan made arrangements to visit McDonald.
“When he saw me, I think he thought I was there to hurt him,” said Phelan. “We talked and I told him that when he got out, he was to come and see me, but don’t steal any of the vehicles.”
Eventually McDonald was released, Phelan said then he took his driver’s license test in the same car he been arrested for stealing years ago.
“After awhile, he went back to Texas, enrolled into high school and got his GED,” Phelan said.
He finished college in Texas and now works as a teacher’s assistant.
“Jonathan’s a grown man with a family now,” she added.
As she gets older, Phelan said there is something about taking care of each other as we go through life.
In the movie A Streetcar Named Desire, Phelan said there is a wonderful line where the character Blanche Dubois says, “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
“There’s something about being kind to strangers,” Phelan said. “That I think filters through our whole lives and hopefully makes our lives worth living.”
