AKA:   Steven Kloves

Occupation:   Director, screenwriter

* 1960, Austin, TX

Education:     University of California at Los Angeles

Kloves began writing professionally after being rejected by the film department at UCLA and taking a job delivering scripts for an agency. His third screenplay became his first credit, RACING WITH THE MOON (1984), a touching story of young love with Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage and Elizabeth McGovern set during WWII, likably offbeat, given the more brash tone of most of the teen films of that period. The film set the pattern for Kloves' subsequent efforts: character-driven stories with a cynical edge, measured in their pacing, based to some extent around competitive triangular or parallel relationships.

Kloves insisted on directing his next screenplay, which led to delays in getting the project greenlighted but resulted in the intriguingly somber drama THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS (1989), starring Beau and Jeff Bridges and Michelle Pfeiffer. A moderate success, it demonstrated that Kloves, while not a showy filmmaker, had a flair for setpieces and could make a well-crafted, entertaining film out of deliberately low-keyed plot material. He followed up with another character study, FLESH AND BONE (1993), a very moody Texas love story starring Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, James Caan, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Some critics, such as Andrew Sarris, gave it rave notices, but, in general, both the reviews and the box office were uneven. Hollywood, interested in Kloves' intense, adult romances, hasn't quite yet figured out what to do with his efforts, a little too downbeat and offbeat to qualify as standardized genre fare.

Filmography:

1984   RACING WITH THE MOON    screenplay