Screenwriter and director Lawrence Kasdan, who’s been nominated for four Academy Awards (The Big Chill, The Accidental Tourist, and Grand Canyon), and played a role in creating two of Hollywood’s most successful franchises (Indiana Jones and Star Wars), knew from an early age what he wanted to do with his life.
That ambition brought him to the University of Michigan as an undergraduate.
Today, Kasdan is the most successful filmmaker ever to have graduated from the university. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English from LSA in 1970 and also won Hopwood Awards for his writing.
His papers—which document the making of some of the most significant films of the last half century—are now part of the U-M Library’s Screen Arts Mavericks and Makers Collection. Kasdan is the first U-M alum represented among a cohort that also features Orson Welles, Robert Altman, John Sayles, Jonathan Demme, Nancy Savoca, and Alan Rudolph, among others.
Read more in the University Record.
Photo: The cast of The Big Chill.
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