John Herzfeld
About
Biography
Biography
This screenwriter and director of both TV and films got his start as an actor (and still appears before the camera from time to time). After graduating from college, Herzfeld moved to Los Angeles and began acting, debuting as a junkie in the TV-movie "Lieutenant Schuster's Wife" (ABC, 1972). He went on to play small roles in "Some Kind of Miracle" (CBS, 1979), "A Rumor of War" (CBS, 1980), "Victims" (NBC, 1982) and "Shattered Spirits" (ABC, 1986). He also played Paul Michael Glaser's brother on "Starsky and Hutch" (ABC, 1975-1979) and turned up on "Kojak" and "Baretta."
But by the time his acting career was winding down, Herzfeld had already become a successful writer and director with the acclaimed "ABC Afterschool Special" installments, "Stoned" (1981) and "Run, Don't Walk" (1982), involving drugs and disablement, respectively. (He earned an Emmy for helming the former.) Herzfeld went on to write and/or direct myriad TV-movies, including the remake of "Splendor in the Grass" (NBC, 1981), "Daddy" (ABC, 1987), the acclaimed AIDS drama "The Ryan White Story," starring Lukas Haas, and the true-crime story "The Preppie Murder" (both ABC, 1989), one of the three lurid Amy Fisher biopics, "Casualties of Love: The Long Island Lolita Story" (CBS, 1993), featuring Alyssa Milano, and the thriller "Comes the Dawn" (HBO, 1995). Still bitten by the acting bug, he also played cameo roles in a number of these projects.
Herzfeld began his big screen career writing screenplays for the romance "Voices" (1979) and the teen comedy "Hang Tough" (1982), before writing and directing the English-language version of the Israeli war drama "The Last Winter" (1982). His next writing/directing project, the dreadful John Travolta-Olivia Newton-John comedy "Two of a Kind" (1983) derailed his screen career.
He played a small role in "Cobra" (1986) and appeared in the documentary "Stephen Verona: Self Portrait" (1995), but Herzfeld was at an admittedly low point when he began writing "2 Days in the Valley" (1996). Inspired by a cemetery near his San Fernando Valley home, he scripted a darkly funny tale of ten characters and how their lives intersect and change over 48 hours. Independently shot, the film provided good roles for an impressive cast of Herzfeld's old TV and film co-workers, such as Danny Aiello, Paul Mazursky, Jeff Daniels, Teri Hatcher, Eric Stoltz and Louise Fletcher. As a follow-up, he returned to the small screen to helm "Don King: Only in America," a 1997 HBO biopic of the boxing promoter.
Filmography
Director (Feature Film)
Cast (Feature Film)
Writer (Feature Film)
Producer (Feature Film)
Music (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Director (Special)
Cast (Special)
Writer (Special)
Special Thanks (Special)
Cast (TV Mini-Series)
Writer (TV Mini-Series)
Life Events
1972
Made small screen acting debut in TV-movie "Lt. Schuster's Wife" (ABC)
1979
First screenplay credit, "Voices"
1981
TV writing and directing debut, "Stoned", an "ABC Afterschool Special"
1982
Directed and wrote English-language version of Israeli film "The Last Winter"
1983
First solo directing credit, "Two of a Kind"; also wrote screenplay
1996
Wrote and directed first film in ten years, "2 Days in the Valley"
1997
Directed the HBO biopic "Don King: Only in America"
2001
Wrote and directed "Fifteen Minutes"
