Ken Kwapis

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Ken Kwapis bigraphy, stories - American film director

Ken Kwapis : biography

17 August 1957 –

Kenneth William “Ken” Kwapis (born August 17, 1957) is an American film and television director and screenwriter. He specialized in the single-camera sitcom in the 1990s and 2000s and has directed feature films such as Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and He’s Just Not That into You.

Personal life

Kwapis was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, and grew up in neighboring Belleville. He is the son of Marge and Bruno Kwapis, who was an oral surgeon.http://www.bnd.com/2010/09/19/1406142/caring-for-the-injured.html He is of Polish descent and was raised Catholic, attending the Jesuit preparatory academy St. Louis University High School. He earned a Bachelor’s degree at Northwestern University’s School of Speech, after which he traveled west to enroll in the M.F.A. program at the USC School of Cinema-Television. Kwapis’ twenty-four minute thesis film, For Heaven’s Sake, won the Student Academy Award in 1982. The film is a contemporary adaptation of Mozart’s one-act opera Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario).

Kwapis is married to Marisa Silver, with whom he has two sons.

Career

1980s

In 1983, Kwapis directed Revenge of the Nerd for CBS’ Afternoon Playhouse, followed by Summer Switch for ABC’s Afterschool Special. Starring Robert Klein, Summer Switch is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, the sequel to a young adult fantasy, Freaky Friday. For the Scholastic Book Company, Kwapis directed The Beniker Gang, starring Andrew McCarthy.

Kwapis’ first feature film was Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird (Warner Bros., 1985). The film was not only Kwapis’ big-screen debut, but also the big-screen debut of the Sesame Street ensemble (Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, The Count, Bert & Ernie, et al.). Follow That Bird tells the story of Big Bird’s quest to live with a family of his own kind; namely, birds. A social worker arranges for Big Bird to move in with a family of Dodo Birds in Oceanview, Illinois.

In 1987, Kwapis made his prime time television debut, directing an installment of Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories.

Kwapis’ second feature Vibes (Columbia, 1988) was made under Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s fledgling Imagine banner. Written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, Vibes is the tale of two psychics (Jeff Goldblum and Cyndi Lauper) who are enlisted by a fortune hunter (Peter Falk) to divine the whereabouts of a treasure hidden in the Andes. The film was shot on location in Ecuador, and features a pan pipe-flavored score by James Horner.

1990s

Kwapis began the 1990s with a feature-film project, He Said, She Said (Paramount, 1991)—co-directed by his now-wife Marisa Silver. The film, written by Brian Hohlfeld, is a romantic comedy in which the same events are recounted twice—once from each partner’s point-of-view. The woman’s (Elizabeth Perkins) portion of the film was directed by Silver and the man’s (Kevin Bacon) by Kwapis. The film also features Sharon Stone and Nathan Lane. Soon after the release of He Said, She Said, the film’s title (coined by Silver) entered the vernacular as shorthand for any situation involving "testimony in direct conflict".For the etymology of the phrase, "He said, she said", see William Safire, "On Language; He-Said, She-Said", http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/12/magazine/on-language-he-said-she-said.html .

Kwapis then moved into series television, directing the pilot of HBO’s comedy The Larry Sanders Show. He directed twelve episodes of the series.

Kwapis also contributed two episodes to the sci-fi series Eerie, Indiana.

Kwapis’ fourth feature, Dunston Checks In (Twentieth Century Fox, 1996), stars Jason Alexander as the manager of a grand hotel in New York City, which is owned and operated by a tyrant in the Leona Helmsley mold (Faye Dunaway). An aristocrat of dubious origin (Rupert Everett) checks into the hotel with an orangutan jewel thief.