IN 1988, Naomi Foner, a screenwriter with a couple of movies to her credit, wrote a poignant script about a family running from the F.B.I. because of a violent act the once-radical parents committed back in the 60's.
"Running on Empty," directed by Sidney Lumet, then at the top of his game after hits like "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Network," earned Ms. Foner a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay.
Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand and Paul Newman hired her to write scripts for them, and some of her screenplays were made into movies with stars like Jessica Lange and Halle Berry. But nothing she wrote received anywhere near the acclaim of "Running on Empty," which remained the high point of her career. Despite her talent, and the buzz that had once attached to her name, Ms. Foner's career sputtered and stalled.
Now, 16 years later at 58, Ms. Foner has managed to write her way back into prominence and demand. She has a quartet of new high-profile projects, not least the eagerly anticipated "Bee Season,'' due out next year from Fox Searchlight, with Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche.
She also has a new name: Naomi Gyllenhaal.
"I didn't decide to use Gyllenhaal because my kids are famous," she said with a laugh, referring to Maggie Gyllenhaal, 26, and Jake Gyllenhaal, 23, two of Hollywood's hottest actors.
As if on cue, Jake, who is camped out at his parents' sleek Hollywood Hills home, enters the living room, followed by his German shepherd, Atticus. His mother's eyes light up when she sees him.
O.K., she concedes, maybe her new name does help her seem like a hot property to young studio execs who have never heard of the Chicago Seven, much less "Running on Empty." But in Hollywood, "heat'' is an elusive quality that sometimes depends less on skill and achievement than on a player's perceived place in the order of things. An intimate link to fashionable young stars - even via parenthood - can go a long way. "I'm sure people say, 'You can't have two kids who think like that and act like that without having parents who also have something going on,' "
Ms. Gyllenhall (pronounced JILL-enhall) admitted. "And so people reconsider you.'' But she also added - perhaps a bit defensively - that at other times, her name has opened doors for her children. "There's a familial clan thing going on without exception," she said. Ms. Gyllenhaal's name change was actually her 25th wedding anniversary present to her husband, the director Steven Gyllenhaal, and crowns her recent resurgence, which was spurred by five years in Freudian analysis and a role as an adviser in the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. The analysis helped her conquer a long period of writer's block, and Sundance made her remember why she started writing movies in the first place. "No business, no studio execs - just stories to be told," she explained. "It made me want to do my best work again."
She is currently writing a film for Universal and Reese Witherspoon about Amy Biehl, the activist and Fulbright scholar murdered in South Africa in 1993, and another for Fox 2000 and Sandra Bullock about Grace Metalious, the author of "Peyton Place.'' A third project, for the über-producer Kathleen Kennedy, is about the feminist icon Victoria Woodhull, who in 1872 became the first woman to run for president of the United States.
Ms. Kennedy and Ms. Gyllenhaal, who worked together previously on "A Dangerous Woman" (1993), joined forces on the Woodhull project when they found themselves both trying to option Barbara Goldsmith's book "Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull."
"Naomi's constant fascination and need to feel like she has her finger on the pulse is what makes her so alive," Ms. Kennedy said. "She's always been extremely connected in many different respects to politics, the world around her and events that affect us every day."
Of her current projects, Ms. Gyllenhaal said her "breakout" was "Bee Season." Adapted from Myla Goldberg's novel, the film stars Mr. Gere as a father who becomes obsessed with his daughter's National Spelling Bee championship as his marriage to his wife (Ms. Binoche) unravels.
