Robert Kaplow

Robert Kaplow (born May 30, 1954) is an American writer, comedian, and teacher. His coming-of-age novel was made into the film Me and Orson Welles. The story is about "youthful creative ambition" and received positive reviews from The New York Times, which described it as "nimble, likable and smart." He has also written and performed comedy for NPR and was the screenwriter of the 2025 film Blue Moon, for which he received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the 98th Academy Awards.

Background Kaplow was born to a Jewish family in New Jersey on May 30, 1954. He graduated in 1972 from Westfield High School in Westfield, New Jersey, where he wrote his first satirical sketches as a student.

One of Kaplow's later novels is sprinkled with references to Westfield. "Westfield remains for me the geography of my youth. I'm still very drawn to the place, though I don't live there," Kaplow said in 2009.

He graduated from Rutgers University, the state university of New Jersey. He became a teacher at Summit High School, working there for over thirty years before retiring in 2014. Kaplow wondered what the young man might have been thinking. He wrote the story, but it took about nine years to find a publisher. Me and Orson Welles was a New York Times bestseller and the film in 2008 starred Zac Efron and Claire Danes. The movie was filmed in the Gaiety Theatre on the Isle of Man.

Kaplow's subsequent novel is a satire of writers, critics, and publishers.

For National Public Radio's Morning Edition, Kaplow created "Moe Moskowitz and the Punsters," a series of musical and satirical pop-culture parodies. These musical parodies were released on two CDs: Steven Spielberg, Give Me Some of Your Money and Cancel My Subscription: The Worst of NPR.

The Watcher The 2022 Netflix show The Watcher, based on a real-life incident that occurred in Kaplow's hometown of Westfield, features a character loosely based on Kaplow named Roger Kaplan, portrayed by Michael Nouri, who is presented as a suspect of being the author of the mysterious letters. Kaplow became associated with the case during his time as a teacher, when he told students that he had written a number of letters to a residence in Westfield, as opposed to anyone who lived in the house. There is no known actual connection between Kaplow and "The Watcher", and Kaplow said in 2022 that the letters he wrote were to a different house in which he eventually befriended the residents.

Works