In 1972, Phillips along with her husband
Michael Phillips and producer
Tony Bill commissioned
David S. Ward to write the screenplay for
The Sting, for $3,500. Phillips was also a notorious drug user (cocaine especially), which she chronicled in detail in her memoirs. The side-effects of cocaine addiction caused her to be fired from
Close Encounters of the Third Kind during post-production. Periods of drug abuse, gratuitous spending and damaging boyfriends took their toll over the next few years. Phillips's early work in a producing team with her husband continues to receive acclaim within the industry. Twenty-five years after its
Oscar success,
The Sting was inducted into the
Producers Guild of America's Hall of Fame, granting each of its producers a Golden Laurel Award. In June 2007,
Taxi Driver was ranked as the 52nd-best American feature film of all time by the
American Film Institute. In December 2007,
Close Encounters was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the
National Film Registry. ==Publishing success==