- Born
- Birth nameFrederic Alan Schepisi
- Fred began in advertising in Melbourne, Australia, working in an ad agency before joining the film production house, Cinesound. Two years later he founded the Film House directing both TV commercials and PR documentaries. His first foray into feature film making was The Priest, one chapter of the portmanteau film, Libido (1974). His first feature- length film was The Devil's Playground (1975), which won 6 AFI awards and established Fred's reputation as a talented producer, director, writer. The success of his second film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1977) with Tommy Lewis, Freddie Reynolds. This took Fred to the U.S. where he directed Barbarosa (1981),with Willie Nelson, Gary Busey, Iceman with Timothy Hutton, John Lone (1983), Plenty (1985) starring Meryl Streep, Charles Dance, Sir John Gielgud and Sam Neil, Roxanne (1987) starring Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah. Fred returned to Australia to co-write and direct Evil Angels (aka A Cry in the Dark, 1988) from the novel by John Bryson, starring Meryl Streep and Sam Neil. Other films Fred directed and produced are The Russia House (1990) Sean Connery and Michele Pfeiffer, Mr. Baseball (1992) Ken Takakura, Tom Selleck, and Aya Takanashi. Six Degrees of Separation (1993) Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland and Will Smith, then directed and co-produced IQ (1994) with Walter Matthau, Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins. Fred directed a re-shoot and restructure of Fierce Creatures (1996) John Cleese, Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis. Then he wrote the screenplay, produced and directed Last Orders (2000) Ray Winston, Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins. Soon after he directed and co-produced It Runs in the Family (2002) with Kirk, Michael and Cameron Douglas, Bernadette Peters and Michele Monaghan. Fred directed and co-produced Richard Russo's Empire Falls (2004) featuring Paul Newman, Ed Harris, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joanne Woodward, Robin Wright Penn and Helen Hunt for HBO. It was nominated for a number of awards and won the Golden Globe for Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture made for Television. In 2009 he directed and co-produced The Eye of the Storm, based on the novel by acclaimed author Patrick White starring Charlotte Rampling, Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis. The film won the Special Jury Prize at Rome International Film Festival in November 2011. Fred's most recent project was 2013's Words & Pictures, with Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche. Since then he has been busy writing and developing a five part mini series, two original feature films, one a light comedy of a wedding on a train that goes crazily wrong, the other a satire of Bond 007 involving much mayhem and mistaken identities. He co-wrote, with Judy Morris, a romancedy set in China and Australia. Then co-wrote, with Morrie Rosmarin, a whistle blower thriller/romance. Fred is also mid development of The Olive Sisters, a romance across two time periods and Hitches, his original screenplay of a coming of age adventure. Fred Schepisi was awarded the Order of Australia for his service to the Australian film industry as a director, producer and screenwriter and a mentor to up and coming filmmakers.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Fred Schepisi
- SpouseMary Rubin(? - present) (2 children)
- Name is pronounced Skep-See.
- Resides in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
- Father of actress Alexandra Schepisi and Nicholas Schepisi, who works in film in Manhattan, New York, New York County, New York.
- Has directed two actresses to Oscar-nominated performances: Meryl Streep (Best Actress, A Cry in the Dark (1988)), and Stockard Channing (Best Actress, Six Degrees of Separation (1993)).
- His wife Mary Rubin (b. Manhattan, New York, New York County, New York, March 6, 1949), daughter of Polish Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants, graduated from the Art Students League of New York of the University of Boston, is a painter, drawer and needleworker, has a sister Leslie Slatkin and a maternal nephew William Slatkin.
- [on 'The Eye of the Storm'] What I love about Patrick White's writing is that he understands that we are all actors. We don't do it as consciously as he would have us believe. But I wanted you to see the surface person of who these people are, and then explore the cracks. Because it's the cracks that make us who we are.
- If you ever thought logically, you'd never make a movie.
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