Susan Seidelman

Susan Seidelman (; born December 11, 1952) is an American film director, producer, and writer. She is known for mixing comedy with drama and blending genres in her feature-film work. She is also notable for her art direction and pop-cultural references throughout her films, with a focus on women protagonists, particularly outsiders.

She first came to notice with Smithereens (1982), the earliest American independent feature to be screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Her next feature, Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), co-starred Madonna in her first film, and was named as one of 100 greatest films directed by women by the BBC; it resulted in a Cesar Award nomination and in 2023 was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for its "cultural, historical or aesthetic significance". She-Devil (1989) co-starred Meryl Streep in her first starring comedic film role, and Roseanne Barr in her first feature-film role.

Seidelman also worked in television, directing first-season episodes of Sex and the City, including the pilot. She directed productions for Showtime, Comedy Central and PBS.

Seidelman's memoir Desperately Seeking Something: A Memoir about Movies, Mothers and Material Girls was published in 2024.

Early life and education Seidelman was born on December 11, 1952 in Abington, Pennsylvania and raised in a suburb of Philadelphia, the oldest daughter of a hardware manufacturer and a teacher. She graduated from Abington Senior High School in 1969, and studied fashion and arts at Drexel University in Philadelphia. After taking a film appreciation class where she was inspired by the French New Wave, particularly the films of Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, as well as Ingmar Bergman, she switched her focus to filmmaking.

Her first foray into movie-making at New York University resulted in a 1976 Student Academy Award Nomination for her satirical short film about a housewife's affair, And You Act Like One Too. With recognition from Cannes, Seidelman became a member of the first wave of 80s-era independent filmmakers in the American cinema.

1985–1999 Seidelman's second theatrical film Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), featuring then-rising star Madonna, was a major box-office and critical success, launching the careers of co-stars Rosanna Arquette and Aidan Quinn and introducing a new generation of actors and performers such as John Turturro, Laurie Metcalf, Robert Joy, Mark Blum, Giancarlo Esposito, and comedian Steven Wright. Seidelman encouraged her producers to cast Madonna, who was a neighbor of hers with no previous film acting experience, believing she would lend downtown authenticity and charisma to the role.

Seidelman's subsequent movies of the 1980s were Making Mr. Right (1987), a romantic sci-fi comedy starring Ann Magnuson and John Malkovich, who played dual roles as both a socially awkward scientist and his lovesick android creation; Cookie (1989), a father-daughter mafia comedy starring Peter Falk, Dianne Wiest, and Emily Lloyd, written by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen; and She-Devil (also 1989), the film version of Fay Weldon's bestselling novel, with Meryl Streep in her first comedic movie role and Roseanne Barr in her first feature-film role.

In 1994, Seidelman and screenwriter Jonathan Brett received an Academy Award nomination for best short film (live action) they co-wrote and co-produced called The Dutch Master. The film was part of the series "Erotic Tales" produced by Regina Ziegler and was screened at both the Cannes Film Festival and Telluride Film Festival. In the same year Seidelman was a member of the jury at the 44th Berlin International Film Festival.

2000–present Seidelman returned to feature films with Gaudi Afternoon (2001), a gender-bending detective story set in Barcelona, starring Judy Davis, Marcia Gay Harden, Juliette Lewis and Lili Taylor. The screenplay by James Myhre was based on the book Gaudi Afternoon: A Cassandra Reilly Mystery by Barbara Wilson.

Her film Boynton Beach Club (2005) was based on an original idea by her mother, Florence Seidelman, who while living in South Florida had gathered true stories of senior citizens who were suddenly back in the "dating game" after the loss of a spouse. It's one of the first movies to deal with sexuality and the aging Baby Boomer generation and had a theatrical run and acclaim at U.S. film festivals. The ensemble cast featured studio veterans Brenda Vaccaro, Dyan Cannon, Sally Kellerman, Joseph Bologna, Michael Nouri and Len Cariou.

Seidelman's next film Musical Chairs (2011) is set in the South Bronx and Manhattan and revolves around a couple taking part in a wheelchair ballroom dancing competition after the woman becomes disabled. The film featured an ensemble of able-bodied and disabled cast members that included Laverne Cox in her first film role. Musical Chairs premiered at the Miami International Film Festival and went on to receive a GLAAD nomination for Best Film in a Limited Release.

In 2023, Desperately Seeking Susan was added to the National Film Registry as part of a selection of films preserved by the Library of Congress for their historic, cultural or aesthetic contribution to American Cinema. The LA Times said, “Director Susan Seidelman takes stock of her groundbreaking career,” in an interview where she noted her "capacity for ... 'aesthetic playfulness,' of finding [her] way toward something great. Publishers Weekly called the memoir “an enthralling look at a trailblazing filmmaker's perseverance and vision.”

Television In the 1990s and 2000s Seidelman garnered success as a television director, helming the pilot of Sex and the City, which involved some casting and developing the look and feel of the show. Seidelman thought the pilot script by Darren Star was bold, presenting then-taboo subject matter with humor, saying, "It was the first time that a TV show featured women talking about things they really talk about in private." She directed subsequent episodes during the show's first season.

Seidelman received two Emmy nominations for the Showtime film A Cooler Climate, written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Marsha Norman, and starring Sally Field and Judy Davis. She also directed episodes of Comedy Central's cult comedy Stella and PBS's reboot of The Electric Company. Among contemporaries, Seidelman notes the cerebral stories of the Coen Brothers, mid-career Woody Allen, early Martin Scorsese, and the films of Jane Campion are all favorites. She has said she is drawn to directors with distinct, slightly "outsider" points of view.

On her frequent blending of comedy with drama, Seidelman says, "If I wasn't a filmmaker I probably would've liked to be a cultural anthropologist or sociologist since I'm interested in human behavior. I like mixing comedy [with drama] because life is serious and humorous. . . . there's got to be something underneath the humor. I like using humor as a way of making observations about how we live and what makes us human."

In Cookie, a mafia story, the primary focus is on the relationships between single mother, Lenore, her teenage daughter Cookie, and absentee crime-boss father, Dino, along with his wife, Bunny, reunited when he's released from prison. In Dino's absence, the women have learned to survive on their own and profane, independent Cookie supplies the solution to Dino's desire to go straight—resulting in a feminist family comic-drama within a gangster story.

Based on true stories set in an insular Florida community, Boynton Beach Clubs romantic leads are all past retirement age. The members of a bereavement group experience classic romantic-comedy scenarios—awkward first dates, sexual insecurity, miscommunication and misunderstandings—after losing longtime partners. Seidelman had not seen older baby boomers dealing with loss, grief and romance in films and set out to create modern seniors without stereotyping.

She-Devil is a revenge comedy/satire that pits homely abandoned wife Ruth against beautiful wealthy romance-novelist Mary. By taking revenge on her husband, Ruth finds power utilizing her skills as a formerly unpaid homemaker, and obtains success by employing other women in the same predicament. Mary, in contrast, saddled with Ruth's children, discovers how difficult maintaining a household can be – at odds with the tropes of romance-fiction.

Aspects of sexual identity and parenthood are explored in Gaudi Afternoon, set in Barcelona, Spain, where translator Cassandra, middle-aged, purposefully single, with no desire for children, finds herself enmeshed in a family squabble among a pansexual group of San Francisco transplants.

Pop culture, performance and transformation Seidelman's early studies in fashion have influenced her art direction, costumes and overall style as visual story elements in her films.

Fashion and reflective colors make downtown New York of the 80s a stylized East Village wonderland for Roberta in Desperately Seeking Susan. In contrast, her suburban home is presented in cool pastels and hard edges—an atmosphere where social mores and false fronts are more rigidly enforced. Performing as a magician's assistant, where costume and artifice is a requirement, she hones her survival skills that lead to personal satisfaction on and off the stage.

Smithereens explored the same colorful downtown scene, but with more grit and squalor, reflecting its low-budget independent production. Wren has more desire than creative skill, but like Giulietta Masina's character in Fellini's Nights of Cabiria, whom Seidelman notes as an inspiration, she's a survivor and her wish for recognition within the local punk-rock scene is presented without judgment. The dance troupe, outsiders in the world of feature-film, include a transgender woman and an Iraqi veteran, highlighting dance as a form of self-expression available to everyone. Laverne Cox, who is transgender, has said that playing Chantelle, a disabled Black transgender woman, in a feature film was a career milestone.

Personal life Seidelman is married to screenwriter and producer Jonathan Brett. Their son Oscar is a producer and video editor. 2025 Albany Film Festival Ironweed Award 2024 Added to the National Film Registry Library of Congress Desperately Seeking Susan 2021 Mystic Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award 2015 New Hope Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award 2013 Women Film Critics Circle Awards Best Ensemble Cast The Hot Flashes

Best Feature Film

Best Feature Director

GLAAD Media Awards Outstanding Film, Limited Release Astaire Awards Best Dance Film 2007 AARP Movies For Grownups Awards Best Screenplay Boynton Beach Club 2006 LA Femme International Film Festival Meritorious Achievement Award 1993 Academy Awards Best Live Action Short Film The Dutch Master Filmography Film Short film Year Title Director Writer Producer Editor Notes 1976 And You Act Like One Too 1979 Yours Truly, Andrea G. Stern 1996 The Dutch Master Segment of Tales of Erotica 2017 Cut in Half

Feature film Year Title Director Producer Writer 1982 Smithereens 1985 Desperately Seeking Susan 1987 Making Mr. Right 1989 Cookie 1989 She-Devil 2001 Gaudi Afternoon 2005 Boynton Beach Club 2011 Musical Chairs 2013 The Hot Flashes

Documentary film Year Title Director Producer 1992 Confessions of a Suburban Girl

Television TV movies The Barefoot Executive (1995) A Cooler Climate (1999) Power and Beauty (2002) The Ranch (2004)

TV series Music videos Year Title Artist 1984 "I Wanna Know" The Restless 1985 "Into the Groove" Madonna