John Leone(I)
- Writer
- Director
Born in Pasadena, California. Parents Elizabeth Rose Kemper Leone, and
Michael F. Leone. One of six children. Father federal judge, mother
nurse and homemaker. Attended Southern California public schools, then
Phillips Academy, Andover; then Harvard. Studied poetry with Robert
Fitzgerald, directed and wrote musical plays, played professional rock
music. Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing at Stanford, then Directing
Fellow at the American Film Institute. Worked with brother Michael
Leone, in family-owned company that owned recording studios, and
produced, financed and distributed 28 films in ten years from
1972-1982, including the first anti-Vietnam War film, 'Go Tell The
Spartans'. He also wrote Mexico in 1996 and Jihad in 2005 for Oliver
Stone and Jedgar & Clyde in 2004 for Sean Penn. Published 2010 novel
'The Crowd Dreams of Love'. Has US, Irish, and Italian citizenship,
(2014) lives in Palermo, Sicily, and London.