Former film critic (e.g. for "Movie") and assistant to Melville, Losey and Corman, whose first produced screenplay was Nicholas Roeg's "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (1976). Mayersberg went on to prove himself deft in the art-house arena, co-scripting Oshima's "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" (1983), collaborating for a second time with Roeg for "Eureka" (1983) and making his directorial debut with "Captive" (1985). His work on more mainstream genres--i.e. the script for "Return from the River Kwai" and his own adaptation of Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" (both 1988)--has, however, been far less critically praised.