Penelope Spheeris

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Penelope Spheeris (born December 2, 1945) is an American director, producer, and screenwriter.

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to a Greek immigrant father who owned the Magic Empire Shows (Majick Empire). She spent her first seven years traveling around the American South and American Midwest with her father's carnival.[1] She majored in film at UCLA in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, California.

Spheeris launched her career by producing short subjects for satirist Albert Brooks, many of them being highlights in the first season of the TV series Saturday Night Live. Her first auteur feature film was The Decline of Western Civilization (1981), a punk rock documentary that she wrote, produced, and directed.

She was also a writer for the TV series Roseanne (1988-1997).

In the 90's, Spheeris directed Wayne's World, a comedy based on Mike Myers' skits from Saturday Night Live. The movie grossed an impressive $121 million, and became a popular hit. Spheeris didn't direct the sequel, Wayne's World 2, because she couldn't tolerate Mike Myers any longer.

Even though she was (and probably still) famous for making Wayne's World, many thought that the movie started the downfall of Spheeris' film career, directing more mainstream comedies than her usual punk rock films. She directed the TV-show-based comedies The Beverly Hillbillies and The Little Rascals (in which she co-wrote the screenplay), along with the Chris Farley comedy Black Sheep and the Marlon Wayans comedy Senseless. The comedies fared well at the box-office, but they were widely panned by critics. Critics felt the films were unfunny, and that Spheeris doesn't have enough skills to film comedy.

Despite the criticism, Penelope Spheeris continues to direct. She has finished directing the comedy "The Kid and I", written by Tom Arnold. Spheeris will return to rock drama: she is at work directing and writing a drama based on Janis Joplin's life.

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Trivia

Penelope is the sister of singer Jimmie Spheeris
She is the first cousin of musician Chris Spheeris [2] and the Greek/French director Costa Gavras, whom she says makes her consider that there is something to the genetic aspects to the job description.[3]
She is of Greek descent
Mother of Annalee Spheeris; born c. 1970