Stephen Geller

Los Angeles, California, USA

Stephen D. Geller (born 1940 in Los Angeles, California) is an American screenwriter and novelist. He wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five, and has worked in the film industry in Hollywood and Europe. Geller recently directed his own independent feature titled Mother's Little Helpers.

Geller grew up in Hollywood during the 1940s and 1950s. His father, a musician and arranger for CBS, was subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the '50s, forcing the family to move to Paris, France.

Educated at Dartmouth College and Yale University, Geller moved to Rome, Italy from 1969 to 1979 to work for the Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis, where he wrote the screenplay for The Valachi Papers and other films. Rome became his home for the next 16 years. He worked in the Italian, French, British and independent film industries. He also commuted to Los Angeles and wrote for every major studio during this period. In 1986, he returned to Hollywood, working there for a time, but leaving to found screenwriting programs at Arizona State University and at Boston University.

His screenwriting credits, in addition to Slaughterhouse-Five, include Ashanti, The Valachi Papers, and Warburg: A Man of Influence, and "Mother's Little Helpers."

In 1997, Geller directed, co-wrote and acted in the play Opportunities in Zero Gravity with Kae Geller, his writing partner and wife. This two-actor, seven-character play thematically wove monologues around popular cultural mythology, capitalism, and the pursuit of the American Dream.

Aside from screenwriting, he has published 11 novels and a book on screenwriting, written several plays, and directed both theater and film. He currently teaches Shakespeare, satire, and the personal essay at Savannah College of Art and Design. His most recent novel is 'Jews in Dark Matter.' His most recent non-fiction book is 'Sabbath-on-Swathe,' an 'author-ized' autobiography.

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