Higgins got an offer to write a Movie of the Week for TV, "The Devil's Daughter" (1972), which he later described as "just a job". He also wrote a TV movie, "The Distributor", which was not made, and a feature film script, "Killing Lydia", which would later become the basis for his 1978 film "Foul Play". He then received an offer from Jean-Louis Barrault in Paris to turn "Harold and Maude" into a play for French actor Madeleine Renaud. Higgins did so, working on the French translation with Jean-Claude Carrière, and the play ran for seven years. The film of "Harold and Maude" continued to run in cinemas around the world, where by 1983 it was in profit. (The same year it was estimated Higgins had earned $1 million from his script and productions of the play.)