‘The accused’ director was 77
Jonathan Kaplan, director for TV and films, including ‘The Discussed’, who had an Emmy nominated five times for ‘er’, died on Friday in Los Angeles. His daughter Molly said the cause was an advanced liver cancer. He was 77.
The son of film composer Sol Kaplan and actress Frances Heflin, Kaplan was born in Paris before he moved to Los Angeles and then New York at a young age. As a child he acted on stage, especially in the Broadway production of Elia Kazan of ‘The Dark at the top of the stairs’. After graduating from the University of Chicago, he studied film under Martin Scorsese at New York University. In 1967 he completed his award -winning student short film, ‘Stanley’.
Scorsese later advised Kaplan to Roger Corman, who hired him to direct his first feature film: the sex comedy ‘Night Call Nurses’. The photo was a hit, which led to more options for Kaplan to direct. In the 1970s he directed seven extra functions, including ‘The Student Teachers’, ‘The Slam’, ‘Truck Turner’, ‘White Line Fever’ and ‘Over The Edge’.
In the 1980s, Kaplan directed various TV films and music videos, together with musicians, including Barbra Streisand, John Mellencamp and Rod Stewart. He brought in his feature career at the end of the decade and directed the much -praised ‘The Discovered’, who earned Jodi Foster her first Academy Award for Best Actress. His subsequent films include ‘direct family’, starring James Woods and Glenn Close, ‘illegal entry’ with Kurt Russell, Madeleine Stowe and Ray Liotta and ‘Love Field’ with Michelle Pfeiffer in an Academy Award -enjoyed version. Kaplan’s last theatrical release was “Brokedown Palace” in 1999.
At the start of the Millennium, Kaplan switched to working in television and directed episodes of various shows, including “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”, “Without A Trace” and “Brothers & Sisters.” The most striking was that he directed more than 50 episodes of “ER” and served as a producer in the series, with five Emmy nominations between 1997 and 2005. His last credit was for Executive who produced the 2014 film “That Guy Dick Miller:” A feature of the same name.
In the course of Kaplan’s career, his work was also nominated for two Golden Bear Awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, a Leo Award and a Cablecece Award. He married Casting Director Julie Selzer in 1987, with whom he had his only child. They are divorced in 2001.
He is survived by his daughter, Molly Kaplan, his sister Nora and his two nieces. He was destined by his parents and his sister, Mady Kaplan Ahern.
