Leonard Schrader

Leonard Schrader broke into show business co-writing scripts with his Hollywood-based younger brother, director-writer Paul Schrader, and has since gone on to write and occasionally direct internationally-themed projects on his own. The collaboration between the Schrader brothers began in 1978, when they co-wrote two releases, "Old Boyfriends" and "Blue Collar." The former starred Talia Shire as a woman traveling cross-country to visit old beaux. The latter marked Paul's directorial debut and focused on several blue collar workers who discover that both management and their own union are exploiting them. Schrader then based in Japan, where he co-wrote and produced the documentary "The Killing of America," which became the sleeper hit of the year in that country. Schrader's Japanese-language "The Man Who Stole the Sun" won awards in Japan, and with Paul, he also, in 1985, wrote "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters," based on the autobiography of a Japanese artist who self-destructed, and with whom Schrader had been acquainted. His work on "The Killing of America" was with Chieko Schrader, who wrote the screenplay to "Shonben Raidaa" (1984), from Leonard's story. Due to his post graduate scholarship in Latin American literature, Schrader was chosen to adapt "Kiss of the Spider Woman" as an English-language film in 1985, and the film was a box office success. He received an Academy Award nomination for the script as well. Schrader stayed in the South American milieu for his directorial debut, "Naked Tango," a 1990 effort which focused on the seedy underworld of Buenos Aires through a woman who takes the identity of another woman and finds herself at the mercy of a gangster/pimp.