King, Zalman 1941-

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KING, Zalman 1941-

PERSONAL: Original name, Zalman Lefkowitz; born 1941, in Trenton, NJ; son of Fred (an oral surgeon) and Sarah (a homemaker) Lefkowitz; married Patricia Louisiana Knop (a playwright and artist), 1966; children: Cloe, Gillian. Education: Attended Grinnell College.

ADDRESSES: Home—Venice, CA. Agent—Innovative Artists, 1999 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles, CA 90067-6022.

CAREER: Director, producer, actor, and screenwriter. Director of films, including Wildfire, Cinema Group, 1988; Two Moon Junction, Lorimar, 1988; Wild Orchid, Vision International, 1990; Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue, Triumph Releasing, 1991; (scenes from Wild Orchid; also executive producer) Boca, J. N. Producoes/Zalman King Company, 1994; Delta of Venus, Fine Line/New Line Cinema, 1995; In God's Hands, TriStar/Sony Pictures Entertainment, 1998; Shame, Shame, Shame, Playboy Entertainment Group, 1998; and Women of the Night (also known as Zalman King's Women of the Night), Moonstone Entertainment, 2000.

Also executive producer of films, including Roadie, United Artists, 1980; Endangered Species, 1982; Siesta, 1987; Female Perversions, October Films, 1996; In God's Hands, TriStar/Sony Pictures Entertainment, 1998; A Place Called Truth, Playboy Entertainment Group, 1998; and Black Sea 213, Playboy Entertainment Group, 1998. Producer of films, including (with Antony Rufus Isaacs) 9 1/2 Weeks, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists (MGM/UA), 1986; and Business for Pleasure, AFRA Film Enterprises/Showtime Networks/Zalman King Company, 1996.

Actor in films, including (as Johnny) The Ski Bum (also known as Point Zero), Avco Embassy, 1970; (as Carter Fields) You've Got to Walk It like You Talk It or You'll Lose That Beat, J.E.R., 1971; (as Adam) Lo B'Yom V'Lo B'Layla (also known as Neither by Day nor by Night), Motion Pictures, 1972; (as Robert Troy) Some Call It Loving, Cine Globe, 1973; Trip with the Teacher (also known as Deadly Field Trip), 1975; Sammy Somebody, 1976; (as Yeshua) The Passover Plot, Atlas, 1976; (as Jerry Zipkin) Blue Sunshine, Cinema Shares, 1977; (as Paul) Tell Me a Riddle, Film-ways, 1980; (as Baelon, second in command of the Quest) Galaxy of Terror (also known as Mindwarp: An Infinity of Terror, Planet of Horrors, and Quest), New World, 1981; (as Hollywood producer) Endangered Species, 1982; (as director) "Emily's Dance," Red Shoe Diaries 13: Four on the Floor, 1996; also appeared in Whiskey Flats.

Director of television programs, including (and executive producer) Red Shoe Diaries (pilot; also known as Wild Orchid III: Red Shoe Diaries), Showtime, 1992; (and executive producer) Red Shoe Diaries (series) Showtime, 1992-99; (and executive producer) Red Shoe Diaries 2: Double Dare (movie), Showtime, 1992; (and executive producer) Red Shoe Diaries 3: Another Woman's Lipstick (movie), Showtime, 1993; (and executive producer) Red Shoe Diaries 9: Slow Train (movie), Showtime, 1996; (and producer) Wind on Water (series), NBC, 1998; (and executive producer) Red Shoe Diaries 17: Swimming Naked (also known as Zalman King's Red Shoe Diaries: Swimming Naked and Zalman King's Swimming Naked: Red Shoe Diaries, 2001. (and producer) ChromiumBlue.com (series), Showtime, 2002; and ChromiumBlue.com (movie; also known as Zalman King's ChromiumBlue. com), Showtime, 2003. Executive producer of made-for-television movies Lake Consequence, Showtime, 1993; Red Shoe Diaries 13: Four on the Floor, 1996; and Red Shoe Diaries 12: Girl on a Bike, 2000; Producer of television movie Red Shoe Diaries 6: How I Met My Husband, Showtime, 1996.

Actor in television series, including (as John Wesley Johnson) The Long Hot Summer, American Broadcasting Companies (ABC), 1965-66; and (as Aaron Silverman) The Young Lawyers, ABC, 1970-71. Actor in made-for-television movies, including (as Jesse) The Dangerous Days of Kiowa Jones, ABC, 1966; (as Larkin) Stranger on the Run (also known as Lonesome Gun), National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 1967; (as Bob Younger) The Intruders, NBC, 1970; and (as Bill Stein) Like Normal People, ABC, 1979. Actor in television pilots, including (as Aaron Silverman) The Young Lawyers, ABC, 1969; and (as Roy St. John) Smile, Jenny, You're Dead (also known as Harry-O and Don't Call the Police), ABC, 1974. Guest star on television programs, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Munsters, Gunsmoke, and Charlie's Angels.

WRITINGS:

screenplays

(With Big Boy Medlin, Alan Rudolph, and Michael Ventura; and executive producer) Roadie, United Artists, 1980.

(With Patricia L. Knop and Sarah Kernochan; and producer) 9 1/2 Weeks, based on the novel by Elizabeth McNeill, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists, 1986.

(With Matthew Bright) Wildfire, based on a story by Bright, Cinema Group, 1988.

(With Macgregor Douglas; and director) Two MoonJunction, Lorimar, 1988.

(With Patricia L. Knop; and director) Wild Orchid, Vision International, 1990.

(And director) Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue, Triumph Releasing, 1991.

(With others) Red Shoe Diaries 2: Double Dare, Showtime, 1993.

(With others) Red Shoe Diaries 3: Another Woman'sLipstick, Showtime, 1993.

Business for Pleasure, AFRA Film Enterprises/Showtime Networks/Zalman King Company, 1996.

(With others) Red Shoe Diaries 7: Burning Up, Show-time, 1997.

Radio Silence, Zalman King Company, 1997.

In God's Hands, TriStar/Sony Pictures Entertainment, 1998.

(With others) Red Shoe Diaries 11: Farmer's Daughter, Showtime, 2000.

(With others) Red Shoe Diaries 12: Girl on a Bike, Showtime, 2000.

Also wrote Bakersfield Blues, Angels Flight, Guitar Dolls, Street Heat, First American Rebel, Composure, God's Head, Pull the Trigger, Goodbye, and Hot; and the stories for A Place Called Truth, Playboy Entertainment Group, and Black Sea 213, Playboy Entertainment Group, 1998.

for television

(With Patricia L. Knop; and director and executive producer) Red Shoe Diaries (pilot; also known as Wild Orchid III: Red Shoe Diaries), Showtime, 1992.

(With others; and director and executive producer) Red Shoe Diaries (series), Showtime, 1992-99.

Lake Consequence (movie), Showtime, 1993.

SIDELIGHTS: Although Zalman King began his show business career as an actor, he has become best known for directing, producing, and writing such erotic films and television shows as 9 1/2 Weeks, Two Moon Junction, Wild Orchid, and Red Shoe Diaries. On many of these projects King has collaborated with his wife, Patricia Knop, to whom he has been married since 1966. The two met in 1961, when both had dropped out of college and were working as crew members on the same ship.

"King's signature is unmistakable," a contributor noted in PR Newswire. Although the sex scenes in his works are explicit, they are photographed in a gauzy style that, compared to such violent erotic works as the mainstream hit 1992 movie Basic Instinct, makes them "look like Harlequin romances," Ivor Davis wrote in Los Angeles Business Journal. Despite this style of cinematography, in their time King's 1986 film 9 1/2 Weeks—which helped to launch the career of actress Kim Basinger—and 1990's Wild Orchid were both controversial for their explicit sexuality. According to King and Knop, about ninety percent of the sex scenes had to be edited out of 9 1/2 Weeks in order to qualify for an R rating, and there was a near riot at the first showing of Wild Orchid in Rome. Despite this, both films proved to be very popular in Europe: they played on the Champs Elysees, the main commercial street of Paris, France, for five years.

Red Shoe Diaries is a television series whose pilot features X-Files star David Duchovny as a man whose fiancée commits suicide shortly before their wedding. After her funeral, he reads her diary and discovers that she had been having an affair with a construction worker who was moonlighting as a shoe salesman and who had sold her the red shoes of the series' title. This experience leaves Duchovny's character with an overwhelming urge to hear other people's erotic tales and fantasies; subsequent episodes are framed as the true stories people send to Duchovny. "The episodes are silky-smooth," with "gorgeous performers and fashions and dreamy music and settings," Cyril Pearl noted in an approving review in Video Business.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television, Volume 36, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2001.

periodicals

Back Stage-Shoot, May 7, 1993, "Feature Director Zalman King Sings with Desert Music Pictures," pp. 7-8.

Entertainment Weekly, May 1, 1992, Ken Tucker, review of Red Shoe Diaries, p. 39; August 14, 1992, Michael Sauter, review of Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue, p. 66; April 22, 1994, Glenn Kenny, review of Red Shoe Diaries 4: Auto Erotica, p. 69; March 29, 1996, review of Delta of Venus, p. 74; November 5, 1999, Daniel Fierman, review of Business for Pleasure, p. 86.

Independent (London, England), May 11, 995, Sheila Johnston, interview with King, p. 25.

Los Angeles Business Journal, May, 1992, Ivor Davis, profile of King, pp. 56-58.

Los Angeles Magazine, November, 1991, Rod Lurie, review of Wild Orchid II, p. 173; May, 1992, Ivor Davis, profile of King and Patricia Knop, pp. 56-58.

New Statesman & Society, November 10, 1989, Suzanne Moore, review of Two Moon Junction, p. 44.

Newsweek, May 7, 1990, Jack Kroll, review of WildOrchid, p. 65B.

New York, May 18, 1992, John Leonard, review of Red Shoe Diaries, p. 53.

New York Times, February 21, 1986, Vincent Canby, review of 9 1/2 Weeks, pp. 19, C17; April 30, 1998, Walter Goodman, review of Two Moon Junction, pp. 13, 17; April 28, 1990, Janet Maslin, review of Wild Orchid, pp. 13-14; May 8, 1992, Stephen Holden, review of Wild Orchid II, pp. B9, C17; May 15, 1992, John J. O'Connor, review of Red Shoe Diaries, pp. B4, C28; June 17, 1995, John J. O'Connor, review of Delta of Venus, pp. 12, 16; January 5, 1996, Stephen Holden, review of Delta of Venus, p. C8; January 9, 1996, Stephen Holden, review of Delta of Venus, p. B2; May 15, 1998, Lawrence Van Gelder, review of In God's Hands, pp. B26, E24.

People, May 14, 1990, Ralph Novak, review of WildOrchid, p. 15; May 25, 1992, Ralph Novak, review of Wild Orchid II, p. 16; June 15, 1992, Michael A. Lipton, profile of King and Patricia Knop, pp. 97-98.

Premiere, September, 1991, Nancy Griffin, profile of King, pp. 94-99.

Rolling Stone, May 17, 1990, Peter Travers, review of Wild Orchid, p. 28.

Sight and Sound, September, 1993, Caren Myers, review of Lake Consequence, p. 49.

Time, May 25, 1992, review of Red Shoe Diaries, p. 73.

Variety, May 4, 1988, review of Two Moon Junction, p. 10; September 7, 1988, review of Wildfire, p. 30; May 4, 1992, Lawrence Cohn, review of Wild Orchid II, p. 266; May 11, 1992, Van Gordon Sauter, review of Red Shoe Diaries, p. 124; April 27, 1998, Lael Loewenstein, review of In God's Hands, p. 59; October 12, 1998, Ray Richmond, review of Wind on Water, p. 37.

Video Business, February 21, 2000, Cyril Pearl, "Put on Your Red Shoes," p. 16.