Randal Kleiser has been an internationally known film director since the release of his first feature Grease. Other features include The Blue Lagoon with Brooke Shields, Summer Lovers with Peter Gallagher and Daryl Hannah, Grandview U.S.A. with Jamie Lee Curtis, Flight of the Navigator, featuring the first use of reflectance mapping in a motion picture, Big Top Pee Wee, and White Fang starring Ethan Hawke. In London he directed the critically acclaimed comedy Getting It Right starring Lynn Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sir John Gielgud. In 1996 he wrote and directed It's My Party, starring Eric Roberts, Lee Grant, Bruce Davidson, Marlee Matlin, Margaret Cho, George Segal, and Olivia Newton-John.
His television movies include The Boy in the Plastic Bubble with John Travolta, and the Emmy Award-winning The Gathering. His USC master's thesis film, Peege, launched his professional career and was selected by the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 2007. He has taught graduate directing students at USC and a Master Directing Classes at film festivals in Europe. George Lucas and Kleiser produced The Nina Foch Course for Filmmakers and Actors, an instructional video based on Foch’s USC class for aspiring actors, writers and filmmakers.
Kleiser has always been interested in cutting edge technology. Working in 70mm 3-D, he directed Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, which ran for over a decade at the Disney Parks in Anaheim, Orlando, Tokyo, and Paris. This led to the US Government signing him to develop a virtual reality simulator to train soldiers to deal with Improvised Explosive Devices in the Middle East.
Continuing in new media, Kleiser wrote and directed the Virtual Reality series Defrost, featuring Carl Weathers, Bruce Davison and Harry Hamlin, which was shown at the Sundance and Cannes. In 2020 he won the Advanced Imaging Society's Lumiere Award for Best Use of Augmented Reality in a Musical Experience for Intel and Paramount's Grease XR. The project was volumetrically captured using 90 cameras.
Kleiser has served on the Sci Tech Council of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. At the Directors Guild of America, Kleiser chairs the annual Digital Day presentation and inaugurated a videoconferencing program to connect university film classes with working directors.
This biography comes from external sources and has not been verified by our team.
Filmography
Year
Film
Job
2020
Life After The Navigator
Executive Producer
2006
Red Riding Hood
Director
2005
Love Wrecked
Director
1998
Shadow of Doubt
Director
1996
It's My Party
Director, Producer, Writer
1995
📺
New York News
Director
1994
Honey, I Shrunk the Audience
Director
1992
Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
Director
1991
Return to the Blue Lagoon
Executive Producer
1991
White Fang
Director
1989
Getting It Right
Director
1988
Big Top Pee-wee
Director
1987
North Shore
Writer
1986
Flight of the Navigator
Director
1984
Grandview, U.S.A.
Director
1982
Summer Lovers
Director, Screenplay
1980
The Blue Lagoon
Director, Producer
1978
Grease
Director
1977
The Gathering
Director
1977
Portrait of Grandpa Doc
Director
1977
📺
ABC Weekend Special
Director
1976
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble
Director
1976
Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway
Director
1976
Street People
(Gli esecutori)
Screenplay
1976
📺
Family
Director
1975
📺
Starsky & Hutch
Director
1975
All Together Now
Director
1973
Peege
Director
1972
📺
The Rookies
Director
Roles
Year
Film
Character
2023
📺
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields
Self (archive footage)
2020
Life After The Navigator
Himself
2017
The Fabulous Allan Carr
Himself
2006
I Was a Teenage Movie Maker: Don Glut's Amateur Movies