Kevin Rodney Sullivan

**Kevin Rodney Sullivan** is a director on The CW's *Dynasty*.

## Biography

### Early life and education

Sullivan is a native of San Francisco who began his career as a child actor. He grew up in St. Francis Square in the Fillmore district of San Francisco as the youngest of three children. His father was a bus driver, and his mother was a receptionist for the St. Mary's hospital. During sixth grade while performing *A Midsummer Night's Dream*, Sullivan's talents were picked up by Ann Brebner, who placed him and his entire class as extras in a movie by Sidney Poitier, *They Call Me Mr. Tibbs!* in 1970. This was his first experience with cinema. Brebner would continue to give him auditions for various roles. In 1970, he was picked up for a job in an Alpha-Bits Cereal commercial, making over $7,000 off of that role alone. He continued to obtain small roles in theater productions and doing commercials. Most notably, Sullivan got a role as the Master of Ceremonies during a show of *Sesame Street* that was being filmed live at Golden Gate Park.

Sullivan then went on to get a part in a movie called *Thumb Tripping*, with Meg Foster, following which he got a part in a series called *Wee Pals on the Go*. The series was based on a comic strip by Morrie Turner and featured an integrated neighborhood. He acquired a scholarship to St. Ignatius College Preparatory, which was a Jesuit all-boys high school located in the Sunset District of San Francisco.

At one point he joined the Young Conservatory of the American Theater, located in downtown San Francisco. As a senior at St. Ignatius, he convinced the theater department to allow him to direct *Ceremonies in Dark Old Men*, by Lonne Elder; and following this, the school asked him to be the lead in a production of *The Tea House of the August Moon*.

Due to his successes in his acting career, Sullivan applied to the Juilliard School in New York, but ended up at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon instead, where he was offered a scholarship through their theater program. He applied to be an English major, as he was growing increasingly interested in writing. He ended up being the lead, Proteus, in *Two Gentlemen of Verona*, for which he had only auditioned as a supporting role. Sullivan was in quite a few plays following that, and was chosen by the school to direct a production of *Slow Dance on the Killing Ground*, a play by William Hanley. He then decided to produce a play of his own creation, leaving the school to do it as an independent study.

In the summer of 1987, Sullivan left for Los Angeles. He began by working with a friend and fellow actor in Hollywood. From there he began to write scripts. In the meantime, however, his acting was noticed after he auditioned for small parts in a few movies, including as Lieutenant in *More American Graffiti* (1979), Tyrone in *Night Shift* (1982), March in *Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan* (1982), and John Grant in *The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension* (1984).

### Early screenwriting

At the age of twenty-two when he was able to sell a television script for an episode of ABC's *Fame*. This connection to ABC allowed him to write the TV drama series *Knightwatch* in 1988. In 1992, Sullivan directed the pilot for a television series on ABC entitled *Moe's World*, which is a story narrated by a kid who has been killed in a car crash. However, while ABC bought the pilot, the show was never picked up by that network. Fox considered purchasing the show as well, but did not follow through.

Despite that minor setback, this background allowed Sullivan to jump into directing movies for HBO: the short film "Long Black Song", which was one of three in the *America's Dream* (1996) anthology movie, and *Soul of the Game* (1996). The later was a docudrama on how African Americans "broke the baseball color barrier" which follows the "triumphant and tragic stories" of Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, and Josh Gibson as they make their way out of the Negro leagues, and into the Majors. The movie was eventually pulled from air and is no longer available on television. Sullivan's successes presented him with many opportunities, including the ability to collaborate with George Lucas on Red Tails, a story about the Tuskegee airmen, a famous African American Aerial unit from World War II; as well as with Norman Jewison on an adaptation of *The Good Times Are Killing Me*. In addition to these series, Sullivan also produced *Frank's Place* (1987), *I'll Fly Away* (1991), *Boy Meets Girl* (1993), and *Cosmic Slop* (1994), before his first major production.

### Major film productions

The movie *How Stella Got Her Groove Back* (1998) swept the NAACP Image Awards, won the award for Outstanding Picture and was Sullivan's Hollywood directorial debut. The movie was based on a popular novel at the time, and follows the story of Stella (played by Angela Bassett) who is a single mother of one who finds love in Jamaica with a man much younger than her named Winston (played by Taye Diggs).

Sullivan's next major production was *Conviction* (2002), based on the autobiography of Carl Upchurch entitled *Convicted in the Womb*. He then went on to produce *Barbershop 2: Back in Business* (2004), which was a sequel to the original *Barbershop* (2002), with the entire original cast returning with some additions.

The latest major film production by Sullivan was *Guess Who* (2005); the idea for the movie was originally a collaborative effort by Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac.

### Recent screenwriting

In the four years between *How Stella Got Her Groove Back* and *Conviction*, Sullivan wrote and collaborated with the producers of *The West Wing* (2000), which followed a fictional White House staff about on various fictional activities.

Sullivan then developed a pilot for the series *Watching Ellie* (2002), and wrote some scripts for *The Guardian* (2002) which was a crime drama that ran for two seasons.

Following the release of *Conviction*, he began working on scripts for *The Henry Lee Project* (2003). This series followed a veteran policeman turned private detective. The part of the policeman was played by notable actor Danny Glover.

The most notable of his recent screenplays is *30 Rock* (2008), which has received national acclaim and many awards including Emmy awards for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2007, 2008 and 2009. The show was renewed by NBC for a sixth season in 2010. Tina Fey was the original project writer, and created the storyline to be based on her own life story. Sullivan collaborated with three other producers, including Alec Baldwin on this show, especially on the second season. However, despite winning awards for being an outstanding comedy, *30 Rock* has been chronically underrated throughout its six seasons of being on air, with a viewership of nearly 5.3 million viewers.

In 2017, Sullivan directed an episode of The CW's *Dynasty*.