Jonathan Livingston Seagull (film) his beliefs. Eventually, Jonathan himself ends up becoming a mentor for other seagulls who are suffering the same fates in their own flocks as he once did. Director Hall Bartlett first read the book "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" in a San Fernando Valley barbershop when he impulsively decided to call the publisher, Macmillan, and then author Richard Bach, to buy the film rights. Bartlett suggested that the story needed to be told simply, without animation or actors, and acquired the property for $100,000 and fifty percent of the profits. He granted Bach final approval rights on the film and all advertising
Richard Bach to the Ground (1963) described the deployment to France of his Air National Guard unit, and was well reviewed, for example by Edmund Fuller in the Wall Street Journal. In 1970, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull", a story about a seagull who flew for the love of flying rather than merely to catch food, was published by Macmillan Publishers after the manuscript was turned down by several others. It had been first published, free, in SOARING, the monthly magazine of the Soaring Society of America. The book, which included photos of seagulls in flight by photographer Russell Munson, became a number-one bestseller.