Michael Schultz (born 10 November 1938) is an American director and film producer.
Schultz was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After his undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Marquette University, he attended Princeton University, where in 1966 he directed his first play, a production of Waiting for Godot. He joined the Negro Ensemble Company in 1968, which brought him to Broadway in 1969. His breakthrough was directing Lorr...
more
Michael Schultz (born 10 November 1938) is an American director and film producer.
Schultz was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After his undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Marquette University, he attended Princeton University, where in 1966 he directed his first play, a production of Waiting for Godot. He joined the Negro Ensemble Company in 1968, which brought him to Broadway in 1969. His breakthrough was directing Lorraine Hansberry's To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which he restaged for television in 1972.
Schultz' earliest film projects combined low comedy with profound social comment (Honeybaby, Honeybaby and Cooley High), reaching a peak with the ensemble comedy Car Wash (1976) and Which Way is Up? (1977), starring Richard Pryor. While he suffered huge criticism for the musical misfire Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978), it should be noted that at the time, it was the highest-budgeted film ever entrusted to a black director, a commendable...
less