Not to be confused with the classical singer of the same name, screen-writer Robert Getchell was born in 1936 in Kansas City, Missouri and studied English at the University of Missouri in Columbia, graduating in 1965. After working as a free-lance writer and reviewer,he penned his first screen-play, 'Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore', which garnered him an Oscar nomination for best original screen-play of 1974 and gained him a British Film Academy award. He was also instrumental in turning the basic theme into a TV series, 'Alice', which ran intermittently from 1976 to 1981 with Linda Lavin as Alice and Diane Ladd reprising her role as Flo in later episodes. Flo went on to have her own series, also created by Getchell, with Polly Holliday taking over from Ladd. Getchell's recurrent theme in most of his films is the relationship between a parent or parent substitute and a child or young person in trying or dangerous situations, the exceptions being his biopics of country singers 'Bound For Glory', also Oscar-nominated, and 'Sweet Dreams'. His output has not been prolific due to his 'day job.' Since the mid-1990s he has been a teacher of Literature at the University of Missouri and the University of Miami, Ohio.