Bill Rubenstein

Rubenstein attended Harvard College, where he studied photography with Marie Cosindas, play writing with William Alfred, and film with Alan Pakula. Upon graduating, Rubenstein went to work in the mail room at ICM, where, a few months later he was running the motion picture story department. After a brief stint as an agent (he represented "Tin Cup" co-writer John Norville, got actor James Russo his first part-- in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"), Rubenstein went to work for producer George Litto ("Dressed to Kill," "Blow Out,") at 20th Century-Fox, where he worked closely with writers Waldo Salt, and Alvin Sargent. He wrote his first script, got signed by Evarts Ziegler's agency, then ICM, got a deal, then traveled for six months, mostly in South Asia. Returning to America, he wrote the first version of "Beyond Rangoon." During the many years it took to launch the project, he made a living as a photographer-- a career move jump started when Bono hired him to document the U2's "Joshua Tree" tour during the filming of "U2 Rattle and Hum." Rubenstein worked as a photographer on over 100 productions during this time, including films, commercials and videos with Aerosmith, Dolly Parton, Massive Attack, ATT, 7UP, Bryan Adams, and Madonna, who fired him from the "Express Yourself" video set at Culver Studios after finding out that David Fincher's producers had engaged him without asking her first. He was paid anyway. In 1992, U2 engaged Rubenstein to photograph key segments of the "Zoo TV" tour. In 1994, after spending four months in Malaysia shooting stills (and co-producing) "Beyond Rangoon," Rubenstein moved to a country south of Switzerland and north of Tunisia. There, he did his best to avoid Italian film and television producers, without success. He worked on a number of high profile miniseries for Italian television. With director Doug Nichol, he went to Spain and England to shoot a still-unfinished documentary about David Lean's right hand man Eddie Fowlie, featuring interviews with Richard Lester, Sir John Box, Sir Freddie Young, Peter O'Toole, Kevin Brownwell, Ken Annakin, and others. From 2001 through 2006 he was under contract to New Line Cinema. As of 2011, Rubenstein lives in Los Angeles, where he teaches at Columbia College Hollywood, gives advice to a rapper, and is writing a spec script about Robert Kennedy, for which he has interviewed many of Kennedy's closest friends and advisers.