John Herzfeld (born August 22, 1948) is an American film and television director, screenwriter, actor and producer. His feature film directing credits includeTwo of a Kind,2 Days in the Valley (1996),15 Minutes (2001) andEscape Plan: The Extractors (2017). He has also directed numerous made-for-television movies, includingThe Ryan White Story (1989),The Preppie Murder (1989),Casualties of Love: The "Long Island Lolita" Story (1993) andDon King: Only in America (1997), for which he was nominated for anEmmy and won theDGA award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Specials. He won aDaytime Emmy Award for directing the 1980ABC Afterschool Special titledStoned.

Herzfeld was born on April 15, 1947, inNewark, New Jersey and grew up inWest Orange, New Jersey. His father, who ran a small maintenance company, had a great love of movies, theater and ballet, and exposed his children to the arts as often as he could.^[2]

Herzfeld began his directing career with twoABC Afterschool Specials. He won a Daytime Emmy for best directing in children's programming for his work on the 1980 filmStoned,^[3] the story of a shy, bullied high school student (played byScott Baio) who becomes involved with marijuana.^[4] He also won the first annual "Scott Newman Drug Abuse Prevention Award" for his writing onStoned.^[5] In addition to writing and directing, Herzfeld also played the part of a concerned teacher inStoned.^[4] His secondAfterschool Special,Run, Don't Walk, also starred Scott Baio about two teenager learning to cope with their life in wheelchairs.

In 1983, Herzfeld made his debut as a feature film director in the romantic comedy,Two of a Kind, starringOlivia Newton-John andJohn Travolta.^[6] Travolta plays a failed inventor who robs a bank, and Newton-John is a teller who puts deposit slips in Travolta's bag and keeps the cash for herself. In heaven, a group of angels (including two portrayed byCharles Durning andScatman Crothers) try to persuade God (voice byGene Hackman) not to send a new plague to the Earth if these two characters can be reformed.^[6] The film was a critical and commercial flop and was nominated for fiveGolden Raspberry Awards including both Worst Director and Worst Screenplay for Herzfeld, although itssoundtrack album was praised and certifiedPlatinum.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, Herzfeld directed and wrote several made-for-TV movies, including:

• Daddy (1987): Herzfeld wrote and directed this drama about teen pregnancy starringDermot Mulrooney,Tess Harper,Patricia Arquette andDanny Aiello.^[7]
• A Father's Revenge (1988): Herzfeld directed this thriller about German terrorists kidnapping an airplane crew, starringBrian Dennehy andRon Silver.
• The Ryan White Story (1989): Herzfeld wrote and directed this biographical drama about 13-year-old hemophiliac and AIDS victimRyan White starringLukas Haas,Judith Light andSarah Jessica Parker.^[8]
• The Preppie Murder (1989): Herzfeld wrote and directed this crime drama based on theCentral Park murder of Jennifer Levin byRobert Chambers, a heavily publicized murder that became known as the "Preppie Murder" case.William Baldwin starred as Chambers withLara Flynn Boyle portraying Levin.^[9]
• Casualties of Love: The "Long Island Lolita" Story (1993): Herzfeld wrote and directed this dramatization of theAmy Fisher-Joey Buttafuoco story starringAlyssa Milano as Fisher andJack Scalia as Buttafuoco.
• Remember (1993): Herzfeld wrote and directed this adaptation of theBarbara Taylor Bradford novel starringDonna Mills,Stephen Collins andIan Richardson.

In 1996, Herzfeld returned to feature films as the director and screenwriter of the crime thriller2 Days in the Valley with an all-star cast that included Danny Aiello,Jeff Daniels,Teri Hatcher,Charlize Theron,Keith Carradine,Eric Stoltz,Marsha Mason,James Spader,Paul Mazursky andLouise Fletcher. The film was Charlize Theron's feature film debut.

Herzfeld described the movie, which follows ten characters over 48 hours in theSan Fernando Valley, as follows: "The movie is about a lot of people who either never achieved their goals, or screwed up their lives, or dropped the football the first time it was thrown to them. What a lot of characters share in common is this unrealized potential."^[10]

When the press kit and advance newspaper stories for2 Days in the Valley depicted Herzfeld as "a first-time feature filmmaker" moving from the small screen to the big screen, theLos Angeles Times published a story focusing on the omission of Herzfeld's earlier work onTwo of a Kind.^[6]

In 1997, Herzfeld directedDon King: Only in America, a biographical dramatization of the life of boxing promoterDon King aired byHBO. The film starredVing Rhames as King andJeremy Piven in a supporting role as closed-circuit promoter Hank Schwartz.^[11] The film received much critical success winning the Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie, as well as the Directors Guild of America's DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Specials. At the time, Herzfeld described his goal for the film:

"I'm trying to tell the tale of a full-rounded character--comes from a dark past, lives in a dark world where there's always clouds overhead and somehow when the ground separates underneath him, he always seems to jump over it and never fall in. ... And how he does that and who props him up and what and when, that's what the movie's all about."^[12]

Herzfeld also wrote and directed the 2001 feature15 Minutes pairingRobert De Niro andEdward Burns. Herzfeld wrote at the time that he intended the film as a study of the country's fascination with celebrity—thus the title's reference toAndy Warhol's famous quote about "15 minutes of fame."^[13] The film received a mixed review from theLos Angeles Times, which noted:

"Like many ambitious, provocative films,15 Minutes is a bit of a mess. Both audacious and unwieldy, exciting and excessive, this dark thriller is too long, too violent and not always convincing. But at the same time, there's no denying that it's onto something, that its savage indictment of the nexus involving media, crime and a voracious public is a cinematic statement difficult to ignore."^[14]

From 2004 to 2006, Herzfeld returned to television, writing and directing multiple episodes of theRob Lowe series,Dr. Vegas.

In 2007, Herzfeld directed the crime thrillerThe Death and Life of Bobby Z starringPaul Walker andLaurence Fishburne. Walker plays a prisoner offered a deal by the DEA in which he can win his freedom by impersonating a legendary drug dealer as part of a prisoner exchange.

In 2008, he wrote and directed the made-for-television featureSIS, about the Special Investigation Squad, an elite secret police force that hunts down criminals on the streets of Los Angeles.

In 2009, Herzfeld directed the 90-minute documentaryInferno: The Making Of The Expendables for his friendSylvester Stallone. The two first worked together in 1969 on a low-budget self-produced film calledHorses, and later again onCobra, where Herzfeld plays a goon that Stallone's character sets on fire during the film's climax. Herzfeld also directed Stallone in his 2014 film, which was produced by Seraphim Films Productions, his wife, Rebekah Chaney's company. Chaney applied for the CA Tax credit in 2011 and received the funding in 2012, with only 90 days allotted for pre-production or the credit would be awarded to another production. Chaney and Herzfeld started the process together before any cast members were assigned. Chaney is the original first producer of the filmReach Me.

• John Herzfeld atIMDb