Lawrence Kasdan

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Lawrence Kasdan
Born	January 14, 1949 (1949-01-14) (age 59) Miami, Florida
Spouse(s)	Meg Kasdan (1971-)
Awards won Golden Raspberry Awards Worst Remake or Sequel 1994 Wyatt Earp Other Awards Saturn Award for Best Writing 1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark Golden Berlin Bear 1991 Grand Canyon

Lawrence Kasdan (born 14 January 1949) 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 was born in Miami, Florida. He 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.

[edit] Filmography

Year	Title	Notes
1980	The Empire Strikes Back	writer
1981	Raiders of the Lost Ark	writer
	Body Heat	writer, director
	Continental Divide	writer
1983	Return of the Jedi	writer
	The Big Chill	writer, director, and executive producer
1985	Silverado	writer, director, and producer
1988	The Accidental Tourist	writer, director, and producer
1990	I Love You to Death	director
1991	Grand Canyon	writer, director, and producer
1992	The Bodyguard	writer and producer
1994	Wyatt Earp	writer, director, and producer
1995	French Kiss	director
1999	Mumford	writer and director
2003	Dreamcatcher	writer and director
2010	Time Share	director

[edit] External links

• Lawrence Kasdan at the Internet Movie Database

v • d • e Films directed by Lawrence Kasdan Body Heat (1981) • The Big Chill (1983) • Silverado (1985) • The Accidental Tourist (1988) • I Love You to Death (1990) • Grand Canyon (1991) • Wyatt Earp (1994) • French Kiss (1995) • Mumford (1999) • Dreamcatcher (2003)

Persondata
NAME	Kasdan, Lawrence
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Film producer
DATE OF BIRTH	1949-1-14
PLACE OF BIRTH	Miami, Florida
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH