Biography

I was born in Illinois, where my parents were students. From campus my parents moved to the Chicago area and divorced. I spent my formative years in the Chicago suburbs and metro area.

On most weekends my mother would bring us to see films at a revival theater. I was weaned on all-day Woody Allen festivals, along with Chaplin, Clint Eastwood, The Marx Brothers, and foreign films. The Parkway Cinema, which held so many memories for me, has since been turned into a Lenscrafters. Progress…..

From an early age I was inspired by the power of film. Also instilled in me was a deep appreciation for the natural world.

When we lived with my father we lived on an expansive cemetery in Lombard, Illinois. Incidentally, this was the highest naturally occurring point in DuPage County.

The place had an amazing history. It was owned and operated by organized crime during the prohibition era. They would smuggle contraband in coffins and had a tunnel leading from the main structure to the stables (later a garage). The lookout could see the lawmen approaching from miles away by the dust clouds created from the unpaved roads.

From the same vantage we watched the suburban sprawl encroach each year. While it may sound a little bizarre, the grounds were beautiful! Flowering trees, rows of peonies, and marshes, complete with singing frogs. I would spend hours among the trees and the headstones.

The house was just as wondrous. Huge and old, it held a certain mystery for a child my age. That house has since been burned down for the insurance money. The grounds, including the trees and peonies, have been plowed under for housing developments and an office park. Progress…..

From Lombard we moved to a nearby town, where my father designed and built a passive-solar house. I lived in that house from about age 10 to age 19.

I hated high school. My High School was run like a police state. The only thing that saved me was my radio show. The school had a radio station that broadcast to the surrounding area at 250 Watts.

From high school I entered Columbia College’s film program in Chicago. I lived in Hyde Park on Chicago’s south side, very close to the University of Chicago.

During my early years at Columbia College we were immersed in film, actual film. All our work was filmed with a Bolex, then edited on Movie-o-las, our soundtracks built on magnetic single-sprocket films stock, cut with razors and taped together. Booking a Steenbeck suite was the height of luxury, heady days indeed.

At Columbia College, I declared Producing as my concentration in the film department. I studied under Bob Enrietto for the remainder of my BA studies, a salty old AD who worked in the biz for 30 years.

I believe that the responsible creation of media content is, in fact, a public trust. To that end, I have dedicated myself to the ethical pursuit of the visual arts.