Sean O'Rourke MAT '68 (Author, A BRIEF HISTORY OF HARVARD EATERIES & WATERING HOLES)

By D. Dona Le '05

Sean O’Rourke is quite the character. Perhaps even more of a character than the colorful lives featured in his latest work, A BRIEF HISTORY OF HARVARD EATERIES AND WATERING HOLES.

A delightful phone conversation with O’Rourke the day before Thanksgiving reveals that he is warm, witty, and full of literary anecdotes and uncommon bits of knowledge and history. From his home in Cambridge, O’Rourke can look out the window at Annenberg and the Fogg Art Museum; the Yard is shielded from his view, but its treetops are visible. O’Rourke has remained close to his graduate alma mater.

Jon Steinberg '97 (Writer & Producer, HUMAN TARGET, JERICHO)

By Sean O'Rourke MAT '68

When Jon Steinberg '97 was an undergraduate in Mather House, he concentrated in government, but movies were his passion. After graduation he went to law school at the University of Pennsylvania and later practiced at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in Philadelphia for a year. But the draw to Los Angeles and the movie industry was too much to ignore. So he packed up his car and drove to California.

Jeff Schaffer '91 (Writer, Producer, & Director, SEINFELD, CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, BRUNO, EUROTRIP)

By Sean O'Rourke MAT '68

In college the friends we make and the groups we join are sometimes more important than the professors whose courses we take. This is certainly true for Jeff Schaffer '91. He came to Cambridge with vague aspirations to become a doctor, an archeologist, or at least a scientist of some sort, and it just did not work out that way.

He drifted from classics to archeology to biological anthropology. But more importantly, he joined the Lampoon. And he spent more time in the Castle than the Yard. His was not a classic Harvard experience (is there such a thing?), but it was great education for a comedy writer.

Eva Gordon HMS '00 (Producer, PLAY THE GAME)

By Sean O'Rourke MAT '68

Filmmakers come from diverse backgrounds: acting, cinematography, writing, film school. Eva Gordon HMS '00 has a different background. She earned a PhD in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, and married an MBA. With a background like that, who would have thought that the first movie she executive produced, PLAY THE GAME, starring Andy Griffith and Doris Roberts, would be in selected theaters on August 28th?

It all began in business school where Eva’s future husband, Marc Fienberg, had trouble developing enthusiasm for straight line amortization schedules and depreciation rules. After graduation, he bought a round-the-world plane ticket, hoping to come back from his trip with a script for a movie. On one night of the trip he woke up with an idea for a romantic comedy and wrote an outline of what would become PLAY THE GAME.

Kevin Rafferty '70 (Documentary Producer, Director, and Cinematographer, HARVARD BEATS YALE: 29-29, THE ATOMIC CAFE)

By Sean O'Rourke MAT '68

On a crisp, clear afternoon in November 1968 forty thousand fans packed Harvard Stadium, Kevin Rafferty '70 among them. Expectations ran high. In New Haven all alumni had received two tickets apiece regardless of the number requested. In Cambridge officials filled the orders of the oldest classes first. When they reached 1949 they ran out of tickets and stopped. A scalper reportedly asked and received a thousand dollars for a block of eight seats.

On campuses across the country people were proclaiming that God was dead. In New Haven everyone knew he was alive and well. He wore number ten and played quarterback. His name was Brian Dowling.

No such optimism reigned in Cambridge. A majority of the twenty-two seniors, feeling underutilized and underappreciated for three years, wanted to quit the team, but at a meeting they decided to rally around their captain Vic Gatto.

Rachel Samuels '92 (Writer, Director, & Producer, DARK STREETS)

By Sean O'Rourke MAT '68

Film noir – dark, moody, filled with moral ambiguity. Hollywood cranked them out in the Forties and Fifties. In “Dark Streets,” Rachel Samuels ’92 revives the genre. Shot in colors from a very dark palette, the film follows Chaz Davenport, who has to solve the mystery of his father’s death, stay ahead of the loan sharks and find someone he can trust . . . if he can trust anyone.

Chaz owns a hot, new blues club in an anonymous American city prone to power failures. The club provides the setting for elaborate musical numbers in the manner of Busby Berkeley. The blackouts provide the noir.

Larry Tanz '92 (Producer & Former CEO of LivePlanet)

By Sean O'Rourke MAT '68

Imagine crossing the Sahara Desert on foot, running from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, covering 4,700 miles in 111 days. An international trio of long distance runners along with a scrappy film crew did just that.

RUNNING THE SAHARA is a documentary that follows runners Charlie Engle, Ray Zahab and Kevin Lin as they traverse the harsh terrain of six countries: Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya and Egypt where Africa’s beauty and hardships are unveiled. Former roommates Larry Tanz ’92, Keith Quinn ’92 and Matt Damon ’92 were pivotal members of the producing team behind RUNNING THE SAHARA.

Jason Gelles '96 (Writer, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN)

By Sean O'Rourke MAT '68

As an undergraduate, Jason Gelles '96 was a percussionist. He played in the marching band and the jazz band, which resulted in invitations to play with other groups, so many that he frequently had to refuse. However one contact he made in college enabled him to start his career, and others made later have helped him advance it.

A summer job as a production assistant on "American Buffalo" led Jason to consider a career in the entertainment industry. Through the jazz band he knew Myra Mayman, then director of the Office for the Arts. With her help he found a job as a writer's assistant on "Nash Bridges", a show run by Carlton Cuse '81.

Alex Franklin '96 (Development Executive)

By Sean O'Rourke MAT '68

Sometimes the best route from one point to another is not a straight line. Alex Franklin’s '96 career has demonstrated that. As an undergraduate, he developed an interest in theater and assumed a variety of roles including directing and producing with both the Harvard Radcliffe Dramatic Club and the American Repertory Theater, including directing a production of Christopher Durang’s "Titanic" on the main stage of the ART during his senior year.

Dorothea Gillim GSE '91 (Writer, Producer, & Director, WORLDGIRL)

By Sean O'Rourke MAT '68

“We never outgrow our need for vocabulary,” my high school biology teacher used to say. Dorothea Gillim, GSE '91, would agree. Growing up in the suburbs of Rochester, New York, she once asked her parents for an unabridged dictionary for Christmas. At Swarthmore she majored in English and learned how stories of all sorts influence how we see ourselves and the world.

After college she worked at a chamber music society and did a stint as a ski bum. She mollified her parents by telling them she planned to apply to law school, but when none of the family’s lawyer friends encouraged her, she took a job teaching at the Springside School in Philadelphia. She enjoyed creating curriculum and stimulating her students’ interest in books and language but eventually decided that she wanted a larger audience.