His most famous film is In the Line of Fire starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, for which he received a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination for 1993.
Maguire was in debt to his relatives and about to have his utilities turned off when his script based on Apple's concept, "In the Line of Fire", went into a bidding war between stars Tom Cruise, Sean Connery, and Clint Eastwood.
[1] When he received a call from Eastwood congratulating him on the completed deal (more than $1 million), Jeff's wife reportedly had to return a dress so they could afford to go out to dinner to celebrate.
The dead-broke writer spurned Cruise, but wound up with Eastwood and about $1 million.
Raised in Greenwich, Connecticut, Maguire was once a railroad worker, a waiter, and a volunteer counselor with Mother Teresa's group, Missionaries of Charity, in the Pico-Union section of downtown Los Angeles, working primarily with Hispanic gangs.