Maupin re-examines real-life puzzle as his novel hits the big screen

After falling for an elaborate hoax - one that had all the trappings of a "Psycho" or a fake Howard Hughes autobiography - San Francisco's Armistead Maupin was determined to have the last word.

In 2000, he published a novel about a gay radio host who falls under the spell of a phone voice that may or may not belong to an abused 14-year-old boy, who may or may not be dying of AIDS ... and who may or may not have written a memoir detailing his experiences as a sex slave.

That novel, "The Night Listener," is now a movie starring Robin Williams. Like the book, it's inspired by phone conversations Maupin had with someone who claimed to be Anthony Godby Johnson, teen author of the bestselling memoir "A Rock and a Hard Place."

On screen, Williams plays Maupin's stand-in, Gabriel Noone. In the midst of a painful breakup, Gabriel is particularly susceptible to cries in the night. And when a manuscript comes to him from a boy named Pete, Gabriel begins a long-distance phone relationship with the kid and his social worker (Toni Collette), who sounds suspiciously like the boy.

"It started in 1993 - that's when I got the manuscript for `A Rock and a Hard Place,' and began talking to Tony, a supposedly dying boy in Union City, N.J.," recalls Maupin, 62, best known for the "Tales of the City" novels, which have been turned into a miniseries. "As the mystery deepened and people began questioning Tony's existence, I saw the whole thing as enormously illustrative of the ways in which we connect to people. ... But my first instinct was to tell this story, and bring the truth out, whatever it was."

For co-star Collette ("The Sixth Sense," "About a Boy"), Maupin's firsthand knowledge of the bizarre case added an overlay of ambiguity. On the set, the "lovely teddy bear of a man," as she refers to Maupin, provided insights into Vicki Johnson, Tony's mother/phone voice.

"The fact that this story was inspired by Armistead's own experience is completely enthralling to me," says the 33-year-old Australian actress. "For most of the film, you're questioning reality. My character is a bit of a shape-shifter. ...You yearn for characters like that, who are so complex and layered and real."

Still, the film, like the novel, takes dramatic license. Unlike Gabriel, Maupin didn't track Johnson cross-country to his home and confront his possibly delusional nurse. "No, I stayed on my (behind) in San Francisco and told the story to everyone I knew," says the author, who shared screenwriter and executive producer credits on the film. "I realized that there was something universally compelling - and very creepy - at the core of it."

Even so, the fictional version took six years to reach the screen, and then only as what the producers called "a gritty little indie thriller." Budget: a rock-bottom $4 million. It helped, of course, to have a commitment from Williams. The San Francisco-based, Oscar-winning actor had known Maupin since the `70s and didn't think twice about playing a grieving homosexual. He had already played an openly gay nightclub owner in 1996's "The Birdcage."

"When I first met Robin, at my 30th birthday party, he picked up my poodle and did 30 minutes with him," Maupin recalls, laughing. "But in addition to being a zany person, he is also a deeply thoughtful, civilized guy. I knew that Gabriel being gay wouldn't be an issue. But it's not an overlaid political thing with Robin. It's simply who is he and how he feels, and who his friends have been."

This offhand depiction of a homosexual "divorce" makes the film something of a breakthrough, says the author. "This is probably the first Hollywood film in which the homosexuality of the lead character is completely matter-of-fact. It's not the issue. The film follows the spirit of the book rather well in that regard."

Not surprisingly, Miramax, the film's distributor, is playing up the suspense elements in its trailers, suggesting a "Misery" or "Play Misty for Me" in which a celebrity is stalked by a loony fan. While he understands the box-office benefits of such a campaign, Maupin doesn't want to give people the wrong impression, that this is "a freight train of a thriller rather than a small, thoughtful piece that doesn't have popcorn pretensions."

As in Hitchcock's "Vertigo," Maupin's all-time favorite movie, a sense of dread bubbles to the surface, through character development and subtle touches. (Look closely for clues: Pete's imagined sick room has the same curtains and red coffee mug as Gabriel's study.)

"I've always loved what I like to refer to as a thriller of the heart,'" he says. "They don't make them much anymore.Vertigo' is probably the prime example - a movie that compels you because of human issues and because of a human mystery that lies at the center of it. You might be creeped out, puzzled or even frightened by `Night Listener,' but ultimately it's about the way in which we love and obsess and feel fulfilled."

Such emotions were in constant jeopardy as some onboard pushed for a more generic stalk-and-slash number. Maupin's constant refrain, a reference to the Kathy Bates character in "Misery": "This is not Annie Wilkes! This is not Annie Wilkes!" The producers, faced with all those uncinematic telephone conversations, countered, "Get us to Wisconsin! Get us to Wisconsin!" It's there that Gabriel confronts the possibly deranged Donna (Collette), and searches for the boy.

"You have to know why this man is doing what he's doing; you have to have some sense of the relationship that's developing over the phone," stresses Maupin, now at work on "Michael Tolliver Lives," a continuation of "Tales of the City." "There is always the temptation on the part of producers to throw dismembered limbs and razor-slashings into the mix."

And that's exactly what happened.

"They filmed a scene where Donna actually confronted Gabriel in his home with a box cutter. I screamed and yelled, but I was essentially a tourist on the set. Finally, the director agreed that we'd be better without it because that's not really what this story is about. Donna doesn't want this man to die. She just wants him to love her."

If the film had been done by a major studio, where $40 million rather than $4 million was at stake, this would have probably turned out differently. As Collette puts it, "The smaller the film, the fewer the people stirring the pot. ... They'd have felt they had to please the audience," she adds.

But don't fret, you fans of more hard-core fright. "I'm sure people who are starved for that kind of thing can probably find it on the DVD extras of the movie," Maupin says, laughing.

For the author, the released version is unsettling enough.

"Frankly, I'll be glad when this little episode of my life is put to bed. I feel like I've been living out the mystery of the boy for 13 years," he says. "There are people who still believe very strongly in his existence."

Maupin catches himself here and chuckles.

"Odd, after all these years, I still say `his.'"

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(c) 2006, San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.). Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service.