Graduated from Emerson College in Boston; fellow classmates included Jay Leno.
Met Orson Welles at Peter Bogdanovich's house and became his assistant after working with Bogdanovich and Frank Marshall as an assistant on Bogdanovich's "At Long Last Love".
Learned to read scripts when moonlighting as assistant to Ronnie Shusett who created and wrote "Alien" and "Total Recall".