I'll Find You

MARTHA COOLIDGE BIO
Prominent American director, Martha Coolidge’s new film, I’ll Find You , is a very uncommon love story set in Poland before and during WW II.
Ms. Coolidge distinguishes her movies with outstanding performances, impeccable production values and a nuanced sensitivity to human relationships and faults. Rambling Rose received two Academy Award nominations for Laura Dern and Diane Ladd, and won Best Picture, Best Director
and Best Supporting Actress (Ms. Ladd) at the IFP Independent Spirit awards. The Prince & Me is a big international love story starring Julia Styles who’s becoming a doctor but a Prince gets in the way. Valley Girl was Coolidge’s first movie, and a hit comedy. It introduced Nicholas Cage who made a splash. Another comedy, Real Genius, launched Val Kilmer, who showed that nerds are
smart and sexy.
Coolidge’s work also reflects her keen interest in women’s lives: In Rambling Rose a wayward
housekeeper enters a family’s life looking for love; Angie, stars Geena Davis who is so
independent she breaks up with her boyfriends, James Gandolfini and Stephen Rea, after
becoming pregnant.
Even in her television movies Ms. Coolidge redefined personal expression. Introducing Dorothy
Dandridge (HBO) told the story of the singer/actress who made history as the first black woman to
receive an Oscar nomination for best Actress. It won five Emmys, NAACP Awards and others, and
DGA and Emmy nominations for Ms. Coolidge. If These Walls Could Talk 2 (HBO) (Another DGA
nomination) broke ground depicting three lesbian relationships as they changed with society. In
Crazy in Love, Holly Hunter, Gena Rowlands, and Frances McDormand are members of a family
in which three generations of women have been plagued by infidelity and jealousy.
As a woman member of the Directors Guild of America, Coolidge served continuously, Chaired
Creative Rights, established the Artists Rights Foundation and in 2002, was elected President,
the only woman to hold that office. Among other innovations at the guild she helped usher in
changes toward women and minorities.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1946, the director is the daughter of two Bauhaus Architects.
She has a younger sister and three brothers, and is a cousin of the 30th president of USA, “silent
Cal” Coolidge. She often accompanied her father to his building sights, to watch crews carry out his
designs. She also participated in his hobby: making movies. Despite his sudden death when she
was nine his interests in building, art and making movies impacted the rest of her life. At the Rhode
Island School of Design she found her calling, “I loved art, but I found myself when I made movies.
Nothing ever felt that right before. I knew I was a director.” She impetuously moved to New York and enrolled in film classes at the School of Visual Arts, and Columbia University. She met
hundreds of independent filmmakers and then, chasing her dream, moved to Montreal to work in
live and taped TV. She returned to attend New York University Tisch School of the Arts, for her
Master of Fine Arts in film.
The Seventies were productive. Coolidge’s first documentary won the John Grierson Award for
‘Best Young Director’, and all her films won Blue Ribbons at the American Film Festival and many
other awards around the world. Old Fashioned Woman opened at the prestigious New York Film
Festival and won a Cine Golden Eagle. Then came Not a Pretty Picture, her first feature. Critics
called it Brechtian in style because it cut between the narrative scenes of Martha in High School,
and footage of Martha and the actors making the film, digging deep to depict her date rape. The
AFI premiered it at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC and critics marked her as a filmmaker to
watch.
Coolidge came to Hollywood to be an AFI-Academy intern with Robert Wise on Audrey Rose.
Francis Coppola brought her in to his newly formed Zoetrope Studios to direct Photoplay, a rock
and roll love story with he and Fred Roos producing. But financial instability shut them down. Ever
resourceful, Coolidge kept working on her own and broke through. Those relationships carried on
though and Ms. Coolidge is ecstatic to finally make I’ll Find You with Fred Roos.
Martha Coolidge is also a tenured Professor of Directing at Chapman University, an avid
horsewoman and is married to Production Designer James Spencer. They have one son.
Coolidge has spoken at many events, festivals and universities on women in the industry, and has
been published in Letters to the Editor by the New York Times.
Below is a partial Filmography of her work.

A Sample of Features
I’ll Find You: Leo Suter, Adelaide Clemens, Stellan Skarsgard, Connie Nielsen,
The Prince & Me: Julia Styles, Miranda Richardson.
Out to Sea: Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon and Brent Spiner.
Three Wishes: Patrick Swayze, Mary Elizsbeth Mastrantonio, and Joe Mazzello.
Angie: Geena Davis, James Gandolfini and Stephen Rea.
Lost in Yonkers: Richard Dreyfuss, Mercedes Ruehl and Irene Worth.
Crazy in Love: Holly Hunter, Gena Rowlands, Frances McDormand and Bill Pullman.
Rambling Rose: Robert Duvall, Laura Dern and Diane Ladd.
Real Genius: Val Kilmer and Bill Atherton.
Valley Girl: Nicholas Cage, Deborah Forman, E.G. Daily and Frederick Forrest

A Sample of Television
Siren, Angie Tribeca, Madame Secretary, The Night Shift, The Glades, Drop Dead Diva
The Unknown, Life Sentence, Privacy Settings, Yesterday, Spare The Child, Producer & Director,
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Maid Man, Fracked, Take My Life, Please, Redrum, Living
Legend. Sex and the City: A Vogue Idea, I ( ) New York, (HBO); If These Walls Could
Talk II, 1972 (HBO) DGA nomination*; Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (HBO) DGA nomination,
11 Emmy nominations, won 5. Sledge Hammer! (pilot) (ABC), The Twilight Zone (CBS)
A Sample of Shorts & Documentaries/ Produced and Directed
Bimbo: won, Thessalonica Film Festival, Not A Pretty Picture: Blue Ribbon, American FF, Old
Fashioned Woman: Blue Ribbon American FF, Cine Golden Eagle, More Than A School, Blue
Ribbon American FF*
A Sample of Awards & Honors
Women Film Critics Circle Awards, Big Bear Film Festival - Life Time Achievement Award, La
Femme International Film Festival - Maverick Award. The Robert B. Aldrich Achievement Award -
Directors Guild of America. Image Awards - Outstanding Actress for Nia Long, If These Walls
Could Talk II. Columbus International Film Festival - Bronze Plaque Award - Best Entertainment -
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and Bronze Plaque Award - Best Socal Issues Film. IMAGE
AWARDS, Best Movie/Miniseries, Best Actress, & Best Entertainer of the Year - Halle Berry,
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. The Crystal Award from Women in Film. The Breakthrough Award
- Women, Men & Media. Paris International Lesbian & Feminist Film Festival, Best Picture, If
These Walls Could Talk. Black Reel Awards, Won Best Actress Halle Berry, Best Film, and
nominated for Best Supporting Actors: Obba Babatunde & Brent Spiner - Introducing Dorothy
Dandridge. Prism Awards - Best TV movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Method Fest
Forerunner Award. Satelite Awards, Best Motion Picture, Best Actress Halle Berry, & Best actor
Brent Spiner. Los Angeles Film Critics - Best Actor Robert Duval Rambling Rose. Montreal World
Film Festival - Best Actress Laura Dern, Rambling Rose. National Board of Review - Top Ten
Films Rambling Rose. Paris Film Festival - Grand Prix, Real Genius, Best Director. Best Actor
Gabriel Jarret USA Film Festival (Sundance). Audience Award Best Picture – Not a Pretty Picture.
Manheim Film Festival, Golden Ducat. CableACE Awards, won Best Supporting Actress for Herta
Ware, Crazy in Love.
More information available on line at: http://officialmarthacoolidge.com