LAWRENCE KASDAN
Name: Lawrence Kasdan
Born: 14 January 1949 Miami, Florida
Lawrence Kasdan (born 14 January 1949, Miami, Florida) is an American movie
producer, director and screenwriter. Raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, where
he graduated from Morgantown High School in 1966, he went on to attend the
University of Michigan as an education major.
Kasdan graduated from the University of Michigan with an MA in Education,
originally planning on a career as an English teacher. He was a student of
Professor Kenneth Thorpe Rowe. Upon graduation, Kasdan was unable to find a
teaching position, so he became an advertising copywriter, a profession he found
so loathsome he refused to bring a second child into the world until he escaped
it. Still, he labored at it for five years (even picking up a Clio Award along
the way), first in Detroit and later in Los Angeles where he tried to interest
Hollywood in his screenplays.
Kasdan's introduction into the film business came in the mid-1970s when he sold
his script for The Bodyguard to Warner Bros. as a vehicle for Diana Ross. The
script became stuck in "development hell" and became one of several scripts
successively called "the best un-made film in Hollywood"; it was eventually
produced as a 1992 film starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner.
George Lucas commissioned Kasdan in 1979 to complete the screenplay for The
Empire Strikes Back after the death of Leigh Brackett. Lucas then commissioned
Kasdan to write the screenplay for Raiders of the Lost Ark and the last
installment of the Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi. Kasdan made his
directing debut in 1981 with Body Heat, which he also wrote.
Kasdan is known for both writing and directing his films, which have ranged from
Westerns to romantic comedies to, most prominently, thought-provoking dramas. He
has received four Academy Award nominations, for screenplays to The Big Chill,
Grand Canyon, and The Accidental Tourist, for which he also earned a nomination
for Best Picture. He has cast Kevin Kline in five of his films.
He makes a cameo appearance in James L. Brooks' comedy As Good As It Gets as the
fed-up psychiatrist of Jack Nicholson's novelist.
Kasdan is the father of directors/actors Jake and Jon Kasdan.
Name: Lawrence Kasdan
Born: 14 January 1949 Miami, Florida
Lawrence Kasdan (born 14 January 1949, Miami, Florida) is an American movie
producer, director and screenwriter. Raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, where
he graduated from Morgantown High School in 1966, he went on to attend the
University of Michigan as an education major.
Kasdan graduated from the University of Michigan with an MA in Education,
originally planning on a career as an English teacher. He was a student of
Professor Kenneth Thorpe Rowe. Upon graduation, Kasdan was unable to find a
teaching position, so he became an advertising copywriter, a profession he found
so loathsome he refused to bring a second child into the world until he escaped
it. Still, he labored at it for five years (even picking up a Clio Award along
the way), first in Detroit and later in Los Angeles where he tried to interest
Hollywood in his screenplays.
Kasdan's introduction into the film business came in the mid-1970s when he sold
his script for The Bodyguard to Warner Bros. as a vehicle for Diana Ross. The
script became stuck in "development hell" and became one of several scripts
successively called "the best un-made film in Hollywood"; it was eventually
produced as a 1992 film starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner.
George Lucas commissioned Kasdan in 1979 to complete the screenplay for The
Empire Strikes Back after the death of Leigh Brackett. Lucas then commissioned
Kasdan to write the screenplay for Raiders of the Lost Ark and the last
installment of the Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi. Kasdan made his
directing debut in 1981 with Body Heat, which he also wrote.
Kasdan is known for both writing and directing his films, which have ranged from
Westerns to romantic comedies to, most prominently, thought-provoking dramas. He
has received four Academy Award nominations, for screenplays to The Big Chill,
Grand Canyon, and The Accidental Tourist, for which he also earned a nomination
for Best Picture. He has cast Kevin Kline in five of his films.
He makes a cameo appearance in James L. Brooks' comedy As Good As It Gets as the
fed-up psychiatrist of Jack Nicholson's novelist.
Kasdan is the father of directors/actors Jake and Jon Kasdan.