Kevin Rodney Sullivan

Kevin Rodney Sullivan (born August 3, 1958) is an American film and television actor and film director.

Sullivan is a San Francisco native who began his career as a child actor.

The youngest of three children, he grew up in St. Francis Square in the Fillmore district.

His father was a bus driver, and his mother was a receptionist for St. Mary's Hospital.

According to Sullivan, he was "one step up from a housing project".

During sixth grade while performing in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Sullivan's talents were noted by Ann Brebner, who hired him and his entire class as extras in a 1970 Sidney Poitier film, They Call Me Mr. Tibbs!.

This was his first experience with cinema.

Brebner would continue to give Sullivan various auditions.

In 1970, he was cast in an Alpha-Bits Cereal commercial, earning over $7,000.

He continued to obtain small roles in theater productions and doing commercials.

Most notably, he got a role as the Master of Ceremonies during an episode of Sesame Street being filmed live at Golden Gate Park.

He had to "sit on this big garbage can with a microphone and introduce the various skits," with Jim Henson controlling the puppets.

Sullivan was cast in 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 played Randy, "a kid with a big Afro who loved sports," according to Sullivan.

For Christmas, the producer gave Sullivan his first 8-millimeter camera with which he first experimented in film.

He acquired a scholarship to St. Ignatius College Preparatory, a Jesuit all-boys high school in the Sunset District of San Francisco.

"The school had 1,200 boys; only 40 were black," according to Sullivan.

Sullivan was challenged in his classwork for the first time; he was also barred from the theater program because of his race.

"I felt out of place and no one tried to make me feel otherwise," said Sullivan.

At one point, he joined the Young Conservatory of the American Theater in downtown San Francisco.

During his senior year, he convinced the theater department to allow him to direct Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, by Lonne Elder; following this, the school asked him to be the lead in a production of The Teahouse of the August Moon.

Due to his acting successes, Sullivan applied to the Juilliard School in New York.

John Houseman, who had recently received an Oscar for his role in The Paper Chase, was his interviewer.

Houseman's comments on Sullivan's abilities at the time: "You have talent, but you're only 17 years old. Most of our students come here after four years of college. I don't think you're ready for New York City just yet."

Sullivan ended up at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where he was offered a theater scholarship.

He applied to be an English major, as he was growing increasingly interested in writing.

"I was a whale in a fishbowl," said Sullivan, who was overqualified for the college's theater program.

He played the lead, Proteus, in Two Gentlemen of Verona, rather than the supporting role for which he had auditioned.

Subsequently, Sullivan was in numerous plays and was chosen to direct a production of Slow Dance on the Killing Ground, a play by William Hanley.

He decided to produce his own play as an independent study, left Willamette and never went back.

In the meantime, his acting was noticed after he auditioned for a few movie roles, including 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).

At 22, the first TV script he sold was for an episode of Fame for the ABC network.

In the summer of 1987, Sullivan headed to Los Angeles.

He began by working with a friend and fellow actor in Hollywood and began to write scripts.

On one four-day trip to DC, he picked up inspiration for characters from fellow passengers.

While his scripts went largely unnoticed, the trip would inspire later works.

This connection to ABC allowed him to write the TV drama series Knightwatch in 1988.

In 1992, Sullivan directed the pilot for an ABC series, Moe's World, a story narrated by a young boy killed in a car crash.

The story "tackled" topics such as teenage pregnancy and death as well as other topics relevant to teenagers.