Bruce Kimmel
Bruce Kimmel (born December 8, 1947), also known as Guy Haines, is an actor, writer, director, composer, and Grammy-nominated CD producer. Kimmel lives in Los Angeles. He has one daughter.
Acting
As an actor, Kimmel appeared in many TV shows, such as The Partridge Family (multiple episodes), Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Alice, M*A*S*H, Donny and Marie (four guest shots), and numerous pilots. He also acted in the films The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975), The First Nudie Musical (1976), First Family (1980) and The Creature Wasn't Nice (1983). Other film and TV appearances include The Young Lawyers, Honeymoon Suite, the TV movie Beggarman, Thief, Ghost Story, The Bob Crane Show, Theater in America's Forget-Me-Not Lane on PBS, Carl Reiner's Good Heavens, Rob Reiner's The Super, Lucas Tanner, Doctor's Hospital, Marcus Welby, MD, the TV remake of the film If I Had a Million, was a regular on a CBS summer replacement for The Carol Burnett Show, that aired for eight weeks in the summer of 1976, the musical comedy variety show, Dinah (Shore) and Her New Best Friends, and appeared in the film Racquet, alongside Bert Convy, Tanya Roberts, Lynda Day George, Bjorn Bjorn, and Phil Silvers.
Film director
He is the writer and director of The First Nudie Musical (1976), The Creature Wasn't Nice (1983), and the director (as Mark Rutland) of Prime Suspect (1989). He wrote and directed multiple segments of the HBO comedy series, Likely Stories. He wrote and directed a web series called, Outside the Box. Initially uploaded at YouTube, it later became a Broadway World exclusive series for its second season (www.broadwayworld.com). The third season of Outside the Box, intended to start filming in April 2013, never came to fruition. However, the show has now been exclusively licensed to the new Broadway streaming channel STAGE (www.watchstage.com) - it began airing in late 2018. For television, he directed an award-winning KABC documentary called Weekday Heroes, and for home video he directed the Hanna-Barbera show, Rappin' and Rhymin'.
The First Nudie Musical became one of the first cable TV hits, developed a huge cult following, is featured in the second volume of Danny Peary's Cult Movies, and is available on a special edition Blu-ray. The Creature Wasn't Nice was completely recut by its producers, with no involvement from Kimmel, retitled Spaceship, played a short theatrical run, then wen to cable TV, but still managed to find a small and loyal cult audience, mostly due to its many airings on USA. The film was retitled once again as Naked Space for some bad DVD releases in wrong aspect ratio. In 2019, a special edition DVD was released, finally allowing audiences to see Kimmel's original cut of the film in its proper ratio of 1.85. The DVD also included the Spaceship cut (in 1.85), three commentary tracks, trailer, a 24-bit version of the soundtrack, and more.
Theater director
He has also written many plays/musicals, including a thriller, Deceit (2006), and the musical, The Brain From Planet X (2006). The Brain is a spoof of 1950s alien invasion movies and was featured in the New York Festival of New Musicals (NYMF) in 2007, and 2008's Festival of New American Musicals with a run at The Chance Theater in Anaheim, California, was picked up for licensing by the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization and has since been performed all over the world. Two of his other musicals, Stages and Together Again are paired on a Kritzerland CD. His first musical, Start at the Top is the only show to have ever had a "backer's audition" on The Merv Griffin Show.
In 2011, he directed a new musical revue, Lost and Unsung, based on his albums "Lost in Boston" and "Unsung Musicals". More recently he directed Li'l Abner and Inside Out. In 2015, he did the book, music, and lyrics for the one-girl musical, "Welcome to My World", about a fourteen-year-old girl named Molly - Kimmel also directed. The show starred fifteen-year-old Sami Staitman, who was nominated for a Robby Award as Best Actress. In 2016, he created a new musical revue, L.A. Now and Then, "a love-letter to Los Angeles, the city that was and the city that is."
In 2017, he directed a production of Dial M for Murder, as well as the world premiere of a new musical, Levi, the story of Levi Strauss, with a book by Larry Cohen (the It's Alive trilogy) and a score by the Sherman Brothers. This show, originally written in 1979, was unproduced until now. Kimmel provided additional material to the book as well as the lyrics to a new song with music by Richard M. Sherman. The cast recording is on Kritzerland.
In 2018, he directed the world premiere of the new musical, A Carol Christmas, a modernized, feminized version of the Dickens classic. The book was by Doug Haverty, and Kimmel wrote the music and lyrics. He also directed the world premiere of the satirical parody revue, Everybody Rise! A Resistance Cabaret, about the current political scene and the Trump administration. The parody show tune revue was written by Joe Keenan (Frasier), and starred Brittney Bertier, Kerry O'Malley, Eric Petersen, Nick Sacks, and Robert Yacko, with musical direction by John Boswell. In 2019/2020 he directed back to back productions of The Man Who Came to Dinner, starring Jim Beaver and Barry Pearl, and Doug Haverty's play, In My Mind's Eye.
Additionally, beginning in 2010, Kimmel has produced and hosted a very successful monthly cabaret series, Kritzerland at... There have been over 100 shows, making it the longest-running cabaret show of its kind. The show began at the Gardenia in September of 2010, played there until December of 2011, them moved to Sterling's Upstairs at Vitello's for three shows, and then to Sterling's Upstairs at The Federal, where it played until August of 2018. Beginning in September of 2018 the show moved back to Vitello's.
Record producer
From 1988 to 1993, Kimmel co-owned the specialty label, Bay Cities, releasing over 100 albums that included American classical music, cast albums, and soundtracks. In 1993, Kimmel became a full time record producer with his own division at Varese Sarabande, producing many cast albums (Broadway and off-Broadway), Broadway singers, and musical theater concept albums, first for the Varese Sarabande, and then for a company he founded, Fynsworth Alley. He was nominated for a Grammy for the revival cast album of Hello, Dolly!, and an album he produced with jazz pianist Fred Hersch was also nominated for a Grammy. To date, he has produced well over 180 CDs, including such beloved albums as the Unsung Musicals and Lost in Boston series, Unsung Sondheim, The Stephen Schwartz Album, The Alan Menken Album, The Stephen Sondheim Album, Sondheim at the Movies, a classic series of Sondheim shows in jazz with Terry Trotter, vocal albums with Petula Clark, Helen Reddy, Liz Callaway, Laurie Beechman, Rebecca Luker, Jason Graae, Brent Barrett, Michelle Nicastro, cast albums for The King and I, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, Bells Are Ringing, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (with Ann-Margret), Little Me (with Martin Short), and many, many others. His album, Titanic: The Ultimate Collection, entered the Billboard Classical Crossover chart at number two and remained on the chart for forty consecutive weeks.
His current label Kritzerland has issued close to 400 albums including cast albums, singers, and a series of reissues of limited edition soundtracks.
Kimmel, who is also a songwriter, recently produced his third album with singer Sandy Bainum (the first two were entitled This Christmas and Simply) – this album, "It Might Be Fun" features all Kimmel original songs, including his collaboration with Oscar-winning Richard M. Sherman (of the Sherman Brothers), "Two Roads." At the 2015 Mac Awards, Kimmel's song "Simply" won the award for Best Song of the Year. He also won a Scenie Award for Best Score for A Carol Christmas.
Author
Kimmel has written sixteen novels – his coming-of-age trilogy, Benjamin Kritzer, Kritzerland, and Kritzer Time, the mysteries Writer's Block and Rewind, and a mystery series featuring teen protagonist Adriana Hofstetter – Murder at Hollywood High, Murder at the Grove, Murder at the Hollywood Historical Society, Murder at The Masquers, Murder at the School Musical, Murder at the Hollywood Division, and Murder at the Magic Castle. His other novels include the western Red Gold, Patrick Bronstein Presents, his time-travel novel, Thrill Ride, and GEE. He has also written a book of short fiction called How To Write A Dirty Book and Other Stories, and his two memoirs, There's Mel, There's Woody, and There's You - My Life in the Slow Lane, and Album Produced by... His newest book, non-fiction, is called Simply - A Lifetime of Lyrics, a compendium of lyrics Kimmel wrote from 1962 to the present.
He published his memoir of his acting, writing, and directing days, There's Mel, There's Woody, and There's You, in mid-2010.
He published fourth Adriana Hofstetter mystery, Murder at the Masquers, in 2011, in which Adriana turns sixteen.
In April 2012 Kimmel published his book, Album Produced By, a follow-up memoir that picks up where There's Mel, There's Woody, and There's You left off.
In May 2013, the fifth in the Adriana Hofstetter series was published – Murder at the School Musical.
In March 2014, Red Gold a western about a ten-year-old Jewish boy living in a boom town circa 1880, was published, his fourteenth book.
In March 2015, the sixth book in the Adriana Hofstetter series, Murder at the Hollywood Division was published.
In March 2016, Kimmel's sixteenth book was published - the comic novel Patrick Bronstein Presents. Patrick Bronstein, the lead character, appears in the Adriana Hofstetter mysteries starting with the third book.
In March 2017, Kimmel's seventeenth book was published, the time-travel novel Thrill Ride.
In March 2018, Kimmel's eighteenth book was published - GEE, the story of two different women from two different eras.
In March 2019, Kimmel's nineteenth book was published - the seventh in the Adriana Hofstetter mystery series, Murder at the Magic Castle.
In March of 2020, Kimmel's twentieth book was published - Simply - A Lifetime of Lyrics, a compendium of his lyrics from 1962 to the present.
In addition, Kimmel has one of the longest-running daily blogs in the history of the Internet, going strong since November of 2001, and has never missed a day of blogging since late November of that year.
Personal
Kimmel is divorced with one child, a daughter.
External links
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