John Sayles

• Date of Birth:

  28 September 1950 Schenectady, New York, USA

• Height:

  6' 4" (1.93 m)

A bright child, he began reading novels before age 9. A Williams grad, in 1972, he shunned a corporate career to work various blue-collar jobs. Goes to East Boston to take a factory job. Wrotes stories submitted to magazines for publication. "Atlantic Monthly" replies with idea of making one into a novel -- "Pride of the Bimbos" is published 1975.In the late 70s, worked for Roger Corman as screenwriter. Took part of writing wages, hired friends, and shot Return of the Secaucus Seven (... more

A bright child, he began reading novels before age 9. A Williams grad, in 1972, he shunned a corporate career to work various blue-collar jobs. Goes to East Boston to take a factory job. Wrotes stories submitted to magazines for publication. "Atlantic Monthly" replies with idea of making one into a novel -- "Pride of the Bimbos" is published 1975.In the late 70s, worked for Roger Corman as screenwriter. Took part of writing wages, hired friends, and shot Return of the Secaucus Seven (1979) in 25 days. Then he had trouble financing films because he wouldn't trade right of final cut for funding. _Baby, It's You (1983)_ was Sayles's only film made under studio control. Tax-free income of $32,000/year for 5 years started 1983 from MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Stipend and money that came from writing scripts such as The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986), Enormous Changes at the Last Minute (1983), and Breaking In (1989), were put into the films he wrote, directed, and edited. Sayles still backs his own work with script rewrite fees.Lone Star (1996), places Sayles with top American filmmakers. In it and his other films, a broadly appealing social consciousness emerges, proving Sayles to be one concerned with what's going on with regional cultures, national values, and with what living in USA is like today. Sayles and Maggie Renzi, whom he met during college, have lived together since 1970s, splitting their time between a Hoboken, NJ, house and a farm in upstate New York. They have no plans to marry.