Mimi Leder

Early life

Miriam Leder was born in New York City in 1952, the daughter of Etyl, a classical pianist, and Paul Leder, a director, producer, actor, writer, and editor of films including My Friends Need Killing, APE, and I Dismember Mama. Leder grew up in Los Angeles in a Jewish household. Her mother is a Holocaust survivor (Auschwitz concentration camp) from Brussels, Belgium. During childhood, her father, a low-budget independent filmmaker, introduced Mimi and her siblings to film production. Her father often dropped her off at the cinema to watch the latest films. Leder said that one of the early films which had an impact on her was Federico Fellini's 8½. She was the first woman accepted into the AFI Conservatory, where she studied cinematography.

Film career

Leder began her career as a second unit director on her father's 1976 film APE, then as a script supervisor on a string of films, including Spawn of the Slithis (1978), Dummy (1979), The Boy Who Drank Too Much (1980), and A Long Way Home (1980) and then moved to the TV series Hill Street Blues (1981). After making the short film Short Order Dreams, written and funded by her father Paul, she screened it for Steven Bochco, creator of Hill Street Blues, and his friend Gregory Hoblit who hired her to direct an episode of L.A. Law.

In 1988, Leder directed episodes of Crime Story, The Bronx Zoo, Midnight Caller, then directed several episodes of China Beach (1988–91) for which she was nominated for four Emmys. She made the made-for-TV films Woman with a Past (1992), House of Secrets (1993), and Baby Brokers (1994), then became one of the core directors for ER (1994–2009). The show earned her Emmy Awards for Outstanding Drama Series in 1995 and 1996. She returned to direct an episode of the series during its final season in 2009. She soon received a job offer from Steven Spielberg to direct the film The Peacemaker (1997).

Continuing to work for DreamWorks, she directed Deep Impact (1998) and Pay It Forward (2000) while simultaneously creating Sentimental Journey (1999), a personal love story about her parents. When asked for a reaction about her film Deep Impact (1998) vs. a rival movie release at the same time Armageddon (1998), she responded: "Michael Bay did come to my premiere, which really shocked me. And I can tell you that after—after [seeing] my film—he went and reshot the end of his." After making Pay It Forward Leder went through a period where she wasn't hired to direct any feature films. "Most women who don't have commercial success are not asked back to the party. It did not hurt me in television, but it did in features." Leder felt as though she had been put into a "movie jail" by Hollywood for the lack of success of Pay It Forward.

Leder's dry spell of feature films after the release of Pay It Forward drove her to other pursuits in television and film. She shot nine pilots and produced six series, including The Beast (2001), John Doe (2002), Johnny Zero (2005), and Vanished (2006). Leder also made many made-for-TV movies such as Thick as Thieves (2009), U.S. Attorney (2009), and Heavenly (2011). In 2015, Leder was brought by HBO to direct a first-season episode of The Leftovers and later hired as a co-showrunner.

Leder's feature film On the Basis of Sex, the story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's path to become a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, was released in December 2018. It was Leder's first theatrical feature in 18 years.

Personal life

Leder has a daughter, Hannah, with her husband actor Gary Werntz. Mimi Leder has said she "was raised a feminist" and "was an anti-war protester all during the Vietnam War."

Filmography

Film

• The Peacemaker (1997)
• Deep Impact (1998)
• Sentimental Journey (1999) (Short film)
• Pay It Forward (2000)
• Thick as Thieves (2009)
• On the Basis of Sex (2018)

Ref.:

TV movies

TV series

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Awards and nominations

Notes

• Scott, Tobias. "Veteran TV Director Still Tries to Scale Film Barriers." New York Times (10/13/2015): C2. Accessed November 13, 2018
• Brodesser, Claude. "Helmer: Leder Among Men." Daily Variety (6/9/2000): A4. Accessed November 13, 2018
• Goldman, Michael. "Mimi Leger: Director." Millimeter (Nov 1998) Accessed November 13, 2018
• Rochlin, Margy. "For Mimi Leder, Persistence Pays Off." Directors Guild of America Quarterly (Spring 2018) Accessed November 14, 2018

References

References

1. "Say How: L". National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled.
2. Murphy, Mekado. (January 11, 2019). "'On the Basis of Sex' {{!}} Anatomy of a Scene". The New York Times.
3. "Mimi Leder".
4. Hurd, Mary G. Women Directors and Their Films. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007.
5. "Nominations Search {{!}} Emmy Awards".
6. Brodesser, Claude. (June 2000). "Helmer: Leder Among Men". Daily Variety.
7. "Mimi Leder Biography".
8. (October 26, 2000). "Healing the World".
9. Gregory, Mollie. Women Who Run the Show: How a Brilliant and Creative New Generation of Women Stormed Hollywood. New York: St. Martin's, 2002.
10. O'Connell, Michael. (October 2019). "Mimi Leder: Apple's Trailblazing The Morning Show Director on How to Shoot Jennifer Aniston, Her Time in 'movie Jail and Working in TV Long before It Was Cool". Hollywood Reporter.
11. Scott, Tobias. (October 2015). "Veteran TV Director Still Tries to Scale Film Barriers.". New York Times.
12. Sperling, Nicole. "Between the Acts {{!}} Vanity Fair {{!}} October 2018.".
13. "Mimi Leder: Television Director, Producer." The Paley Center for Media: She Made It. Curator Ron Simon. The Paley Center for Media. Web. May 5, 2012.
14. (2018-09-07). "The Long Road from Pay It Forward to Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Inside Director Mimi Leder's Return to the Big Screen.".
15. Sperling, Nicole. (September 7, 2018). "The Long Road from Pay It Forward to Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Inside Director Mimi Leder's Return to the Big Screen".
16. Rochlin, Margy. (Spring 2018). "For Mimi Leder, Persistence Pays Off". Directors Guild of America Quarterly.
17. "The Peacemaker".
18. "Deep Impact {{!}} Film {{!}} The Guardian".
19. "Deep Impact".
20. (2008-07-21). "Pay It Forward {{!}} Film {{!}} The Guardian".
21. "'On the Basis of Sex' is an inspiring, schmaltzy RBG biopic: EW review".
22. Scott, Tony. (1993-05-13). "CBS Sunday Movie There Was a Little Boy".
23. Lowry, Brian. (2006-08-16). "Vanished".
24. VanArendonk, Kathryn. (2019-11-06). "How Mimi Leder Made The Morning Show Look Real, Onscreen and Off".