|
LEO BENVENUTI & STEVE RUDNICK
BIOS
|
 |
| Drawing by Mark Roberts |
|
|
Leo Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick met while studying with Josephine Forsberg at The Players Workshop of Second City in 1978. They've been working steadily since then. As the comedy team "Steve and Leo" the duo performed all across the country at Comedy Clubs, Colleges and Corporate Events. In 1990 they starred in a pilot for a late-night variety show for ABC appropriately called, "The Steve and Leo Show." While the show was well received, it never aired. The following year, they were staff writers on "The Carol Burnett Show" for CBS. That show ran for six weeks. A month after that show was cancelled, Steve and Leo sold their first screeplay, a spec script called, "The Santa Clause" to Disney.
That movie, starring Tim Allen, went on to gross over 160 million dollars world-wide making it one of the top ten grossing holiday movies of all time. Their next film was Warner Brothers' "Space Jam," (starring Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny) another top grosser. They also worked on the sequel "The Santa Clause II." In November, 2006 the third chapter of "The Santa Clause" trilogy was released. Their movie "Kicking and Screaming" (starring Will Ferrell, Robert Duvall and Mike Ditka) was released in 2005. All their films are available on DVD.
In television, the team wrote and created "The Second Half" for NBC, "The Damon Wayans Show for FOX and "Meant For Each Other" for CBS.
They are currently working on a family comedy for Sony and an animated feature for Paramount/Nickelodeon.
|
LEO BENVENUTI
by
Steve Rudnick
As
Mark Twain said, "The rumors of my death have been greatly
exaggerated." I mention this because on November 3, 2000 I received
more than a few unsettling emails and phone calls asking about my
writing partner Leo. The gist of these queries were all the same. "Is
Leo dead?" I immediately called Leo's wife and casually asked how Leo
was. I heard her yell out, "Leo! Phone!" After a few seconds, Leo
picked up. "Are you dead?" I asked? "Yes," he said and hung up.
It
turns out a seventy-seven year old Italian screenwriter named Leonardo
Benvenuti just died and the news made Variety. And hence the emails
and phone calls. I responded to those who cared that my Leo was alive
and well. The Leo Benvenuti that just died wrote his first screenplay
in 1948, years before my partner was born. Dead Leo is best known in
this country as the writer of Sergio Leone's 1984 "Once Upon A Time in
America." Alive Leo is best known as the "Leo" in "Steve and Leo."
Leonardo
Benvenuti was born September 8, 1923 in Florence, Italy. Leo Benvenuti
was born October 10 in the late 1950's in the small Northern Italian
Village of Bagni Di Lucca, which loosely translates as "Uh oh, Frank
ate all the cheese, now what do we do?" Young Leo came to America when
he was five-years old. His family settled in Chicago where Little Leo
started his American education.
Leo spoke no English when he
entered kindergarten and the Chicago School System didn't know what to
do with him. In the 1960's, a time of insensitivity and ignorance, Leo
was labeled "retarded" (I'm loathe to use that term, but at the time it
was widely accepted) and put in "the special class." Leo thrived in
that class and he amazed all his teachers as he completed one puzzle
after another with alacrity and panache. Finally, three years later,
someone at his school figured out he wasn't "retarded" at all. He was
just Italian. Hearing this horrific story years later, I told Leo that
I had a similar story from my childhood. I grew up in Skokie, Illinois
and when I was in first grade there was a "retarded" boy in my class
and the Principal didn't know what to do with him. So he was put in
the "Italian Class" where he did just fine. The scars of this
misdiagnoses and neglect are evident today. To this day, Leo is much
more at ease with people who don't understand that fire burns even more
the second time than with those who do.
Leo and I met at The
Players Workshop of Second City. We worked with the legendary teachers
Josephine and Linnea Forsberg. Leo was quite young when I first met
him. He was seventeen, going on twelve. I had already worked a myriad
of jobs and was ready to make my mark as a performer. I asked Leo if
he'd like to be part of a comedy group. "Sure. Neat," said Leo. I
was making a career decision. Leo was trying to figure out a way to
get out of his house. I once went to Leo's house (he lived with his
father at the time). He had rigged his room with wires and pulleys.
From his bed he could open and close his door with the tug from the
wires. It sounds inventive, but his room was set up in such a way that
he could easily reach his door from his bed anyway. It was at that
moment that I realized that I was in the presence of a truly creative,
eccentric and lazy young man.
I'm in the enviable position of
having seen Leo grow up. I was there the first time he ate cottage
cheese. I taught him how to write checks and how to tie a necktie.
And I fought with him for hours on end about Albert Brooks not being
Mel Brooks' son. (He's still not one hundred percent convinced on that
one) The wide-eyed youth I met those many years ago has blossomed into
a responsible man who no longer buys all his shirts at The Salvation
Army because it's cheaper to buy a used white shirt than it is to have
an old one cleaned.
Leo is a spiritual man who takes pride in
the fact that at his old Church in Chicago there was a statue of the
Virgin Mary that shed tears. He was quite moved when I told him that
at my Temple, back in Skokie, we had a statue of Moses that made
change.
Leo and I have been working together for more years
than either one of us wishes to own up to. It's been a long and
fruitful relationship. I'm proud to call him my partner and friend and
can hardly wait to meet his wife and kids (I think he has two). Leo
lives in Southern California. That's all he'll tell me. It's a start.
Steve Rudnick
|
STEVE RUDNICK
by
Leo Benvenuti
I've
known Steve for thirty years; I've also gotten to know his family too.
It would be as hard to separate Steve from his Jewish heritage, as it
would be to separate me from my Italian heritage. I've been around him
so long, I feel like an honorary member of his family. I've learned
about the food, the traditions and the colorful phrases and
euphemisms. It's with great pride that I present his biography.
Steven
Mark (Schmuel Mordechai) Rudnick was born on a blustery February 24th
in the mishigas that was Skokie, Illinois. The town was a perfect
Zubin Mehta to raise a family. Steve's loving parents: Jack and Honey
Girl had the chutzpah to bring two more children into the world, Chuck,
a mentsh and avid non-schvitzer, and Cindy, with her shayna punim and
lovely bris khazeray. Though Steve's family emphasized kvelling they
never forgot their core values, Sukkah huts and altehkuchers.
Steve's
life changed one seder afternoon when he got his first laugh in the
second grade. His teacher and part time yenta asked the kids to give
letter combinations: "tion, ing, ou, ch", etc. The rabbi pisher,
Schmuel Mordechai stood up and farklempt, "NBC", "CBS" and "ABC." The
laughs he received gave Schmuel his menora. He knew what he wanted to
do with the rest of his life, nochus shtupping.
As a mitzvah, at
the age of thirteen, Mordechai was Bar Mitzvahed in a circumcision of
Torahs. No shikse was spared. On the seventeenth of Tammuz, everyone
welcomed Schmuel to manhood with a rousing cheer, "Meshuga a bisel."
But
still, something burned inside Mordechai. It was a desire to recapture
that first yarmulke he got in second grade, laughter. Compelled to be
in showbiz, Schmuel Mordechai threw the matzoh out further, discovering
The Marx Brothers, Henny Youngman, Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl and Woody
Allen, His putz was set; Hava Negila, his ambition.
He attended
various colleges and majored in as many subjects, from moil to
mozeltov. He challahed for ten years and is short two credits in a
degree in anything... oy to the gefilte fish.
Now, with gelt
bobkes, his tokhes kvetching, he went from job to job, like a zay
gezundt tumuling on blintzes. "Bubbeleh," his friends would say, "Why
don't you follow your dream of the chuppah?" And that he did. With
tefillin in hand, the brocha started taking classes at Players Workshop
of Second City. Schmuel schmalzed his way from schmuck to schemata.
There he met his lifelong comedy partner, Leo Benvenuti, a famisht in
his own right. A brocheh was born; the two were to form a minyan...
shalom to the kakameyme faigeleh.
Haggehah dreydel and
perseverance gave bubkas tchotchke to Schmuel Mordechai and Leo. Bagel
schlepping on one hand but always with clear sights set on schlemiel.
Was this to be a nosh? It was.
Tumul shmendrik with shmuz on
Chanukah, the kibitz meshugine gave goyim a daven or two. What's with
the shpilkes shtik? Le'chaim schlemazel, here's your haymisheh.
Schmuel Mordechai made shluff look easy; with obber meer hobben for das
a shickser and zol got mir helfen. So, what drives Schmuel Mordechai?
I believe it's boychick schmooze for Moses or mein klein shvester.
Only time will tell.
Leo Benvenuti
|
|
