Reynolds, Jonathan

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Reynolds, Jonathan

PERSONAL:

Married Heidi Ettinger (a producer and designer); children: Frank and Edward.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY.

CAREER:

Screenwriter, actor, playwright, and writer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Razzie award for worst screenplay, 1988, for Leonard Part 6; Guggenheim grant, 2004, for playwrighting.

WRITINGS:

Wrestling with Gravy: A Life, with Food (memoir), Random House (New York, NY), 2006.

Author of plays, including Dinner with Demons, Stonewall Jackson's House, Geniuses, Rubbers, and Yanks 3 Detroit 0 Top of the Seventh. Author of screenplays, including The Survivors, 1983; Micki and Maude, 1984; Leonard Part 6, 1987; Switching Channels, 1988; My Stepmother Is an Alien, 1988; and The Distinguished Gentleman, 1992. Columnist for New York Times Magazine.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jonathan Reynolds is a screenwriter, actor, and playwright who has sold several screenplays and written his memoir. Reynolds, who lives in New York City with his wife and two sons, writes a monthly column for the New York Times Magazine on food. In 2004, he was awarded a Guggenheim grant for playwrighting.

One of Reynolds's plays, Stonewall Jackson's House, is about an African-American docent who begs a white couple to adopt her as their slave as she is showing them around the mansion. Among his screenplays, his most successful was My Stepmother Is an Alien in 1988. Reynolds shared a Razzie award in 1988 with the American actor Bill Cosby for Leonard Part 6.

In 2006 Reynolds published his memoir, Wrestling with Gravy: A Life, with Food. As a food writer, Reynolds intertwined significant moments of his life with specific meals he ate at those times, including recipes in the book. Reynolds recalls his family problems, his acting career, his travels and studies around Europe, and when he got arrested for stalking actress Kim Novak.

Reviews for the memoir were mostly positive. Christine Holmes, writing in Library Journal, noted that the author "has penned an entertaining coming-of-age memoir … sure to delight readers." Writing in the New York Times, John T. Edge said that Reynolds "is a bit of a crank, which, in the often ooey-gooey world of food writing, earns him a status approaching singular." Edge also offered the opinion that "Reynolds is at his best when purposefully entangling libido and linguine." Jennifer Reese, in an Entertainment Weekly review, commented that "Reynolds writes about his rambunctious life with wit and gusto." Mark Knoblauch agreed in a Booklist review that "Reynolds writes with good humor and remarkable lack of bitterness about his dysfunctional family." A contributor to Publishers Weekly concluded that the reader does not need to try to cook the meals Reynolds relates in the memoir; simply "to read through the intricate steps in these preparations reminds readers of the drama and delight of great eating."