Biography for
Charles Cotayo More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

14 October 1960, Havana, Cuba

Nickname

Charlie
Chaz
Movieprophet

Height

5' 7" (1.70 m)

Mini Biography

Versatile and prolific, Charles Cotayo was born in Havana, Cuba and raised and educated in the United States. English is his first language, although he speaks and writes Spanish fluently. He attended undergraduate and graduate school at The Florida State University where he majored in writing, studying under acclaimed novelist Janet Burroway, and won the coveted Phi Eta Sigma Freshman Award for Academic Excellence, a.k.a. "Freshman of the Year."

His perpetual fascination with the seventh art began during his childhood in the 1970s after seeing theatrical reruns of epics and historical dramas like "Gone With the Wind," "Anne of the Thousand Days," "El Cid," "The Ten Commandments," "Doctor Zhivago," and "King of Kings." In his adolescence he also discovered foreign-language "art" films, presented on public television, and the major works of Kenji Mizoguchi, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Jean Cocteau, Sergei Eisenstein, Francois Truffaut, among other iconic filmmakers. He believes that Maria Falconetti's silent interpretation of the title role in Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928) is the finest screen performance of all time, and Hollywood pioneer D.W Griffith's monumental "Intolerance" (1916) arguably the greatest motion picture ever made whose brilliance (and genius) remains unsurpassed in the 21st century.

By the age of thirteen he had read essentially every book about motion pictures in his local library, which amounted to several shelves, contributing to his encyclopedic knowledge of filmmaking. He considers "The Godfather, Part II," "Cabaret," "Chinatown," "Network," and "Annie Hall," the best American movies of the 70s. Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Felicity Huffman, Diane Keaton, Catherine Deneuve, Emma Thompson and Natalie Portman are among his favorite actresses, and Hugh Jackman, Denzel Washington, Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro and Jude Law are among his favorite actors.

His first theatrical feature film as writer, co-director and co-producer is "Decapolis II: A Psycho-Satirical Fantasy," based on a short story he penned for a creative writing workshop in graduate school. The movie was rated R by the MPAA and had a limited theatrical run in Florida during the late 1980s. "Decapolis II" was dedicated to the great critic and filmmaker Francois Truffaut and has a distinct French New Wave quality.

He also wrote the screenplay for the satirical "Deco" (his second collaboration with his younger brother, U.S. Navy veteran and award-winning filmmaker George Cotayo) in one weekend. The surrealistic, quasi-political thriller was filmed on a tight budget and schedule with an excellent cast of newcomers. It was retitled "Mind Twister." These unique Cotayo Bros. productions are emblematic of their cinematic trademark: innovative contemporary stories with a Miami setting, strong elements of satire, surrealism, touches of the supernatural, dramatic intensity and suspense, and a distinct Latin flavor with a highly original audiovisual style in terms of form and content, designed for a mainstream, multi-cultural audience.

Cotayo was Assistant Executive Producer and Director of Distribution of "The Victims" (1989), produced by a production company formerly based in North Miami Beach. "The Victims" would become an historical landmark in the independent film movement: the first theatrical feature to explore the subject of heterosexual AIDS. Despite mixed reviews, it nevertheless went on to become a significant triumph in South Florida, one of the toughest markets for movies in the country, opening at the top of the local box office charts.

In 1998 Mr. Cotayo began working as a journalist: first with "The Miami Herald," and then with its sister paper "El Nuevo Herald," initially as a general assignment and investigative reporter. Between 2000 and 2007 he won eleven NAHP prizes in journalism for his outstanding interviews and features on motion pictures, establishing himself as a highly respected authority on the business, craft, history and art of filmmaking, and an expert on the Hispanic market in connection with the global entertainment industries: film, television, and music. He considers his published interviews with Robert Redford, Rod Steiger, Liv Ullmann, Patricia Neal, Andrzej Wajda, Bernardo Bertolucci, Clint Eastwood, Ang Lee, Charlize Theron, Steven Soderbergh, Mel Gibson, Robert Evans, Shirley MacLaine, Rachel Weisz, Milos Forman, Javier Bardem and Jake Gyllenhaal among the highlights of his prestigious journalistic career.

For more than a decade, Cotayo distinguished himself worldwide for having interviewed many of the best (and greatest) actors, directors and producers in the international motion picture arena. He became the youngest (and only) Cuban-American journalist/filmmaker/critic of his generation in the United States, writing in any language, to have achieved this historic track record.

With an indefatigable commitment to quality, excellence and impeccable ethical standards, his ever-increasing body of work has firmly established him as one of America's brightest, most diverse and respected writers.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous

Trivia

"Decapolis II" was shot on 16mm and 35mm, on weekends during a time when the new American indie film movement was not yet in vogue. It was one of the first, if not the first, feature-length motion picture developed and produced entirely in Florida to film several key sequences in the then newly constructed Miami Metrorail system. The rough cut was initially passed by all of the major distributors in Los Angeles at the time. One studio executive wrote: "It shows talent, but it's not the type of movie we are making." With it's prevailing Christian themes and its faith-based message of salvation through Jesus Christ, the film proved to be, in form and content, ahead of its time in the independent filmmaking realm.

Charles wrote his first motion picture treatment, "Central Express," at the age of 13, when disaster films were becoming popular. He sent the first draft of the manuscript to director Bob Fosse in New York City after seeing "Cabaret." Mr. Fosse kindly responded with words of practical wisdom: to focus on originality. Charles took his advice to heart and would later debut on the big screen writing, co-producing and co-directing the independent, surrealistic, psychological satire "Decapolis II," based on a work of fiction he had penned for a creative writing course in college. He dedicated the movie to Francois Truffaut whom, along with Fosse, Arthur Penn, Vincent Sherman and George Seaton, he had corresponded with about how movies were made, as a young boy aspiring to one day become a "great film director" like them.

In the 1970s, when he was an adolescent, he received a response to a letter he had sent to French filmmaker Francois Truffaut in which he had asked him how movies were made. Truffaut himself sent him a published copy of his Oscar-winning "Day for Night" (1973) screenplay in English with a dedication written in green ink: "Dear C., This is my response. Friendly yours and best wishes, Francois Truffaut.".

From 1998 to 2010, Charles, who is fluent in English and Spanish, distinguished himself professionally as an award-winning journalist for El Nuevo Herald in Miami. As a feature writer, columnist and critic, he specialized in the art, craft and business of theatrical motion pictures, home entertainment, and high technology. For more than a decade, he interviewed many of the greatest actors and filmmakers from around the world, and won several National Association of Hispanic Publications (NAHP) prizes for his features, columns and interviews.

In the mid 1980s, while in graduate school at FSU, wrote a dramatic-fantasy play titled "Will," about William Shakespeare, in lieu of a Masters thesis. During the late 80s and early 90s, he adapted it into a feature-length screenplay that he re-titled "The Price of Greatness" and submitted to a production executive at one of the major studios in Hollywood. It was turned down because she felt the story was a history "text book" on The Bard. Ironically, with the exception of certain names, the story was pure fiction. This was several years before the comedy "Shakespeare in Love."

As a small child, the first movie he saw on television was "King Kong" starring Fay Wray. He would meet and converse with a very gracious Ms. Wray in 2003 after a gala dinner during the Palm Beach Film Festival.

His first "screen appearance" was as a "volunteer extra" in a massive crowd scene in the thriller "Black Sunday" that was partly shot at the Orange Bowl in Miami in the 1970s. Lunch consisted of two hot dogs, a bag of potato chips and a soda.

In the mid 1980s while studying writing at FSU, he went to a Winn Dixie supermarket in Tallahassee with a group of friends to rent a video. Unexpectedly, a very beautiful, blonde young woman dressed in black approached him with the box of Brian De Palma's "Body Double," suggesting that he see it. Charles responded that he already had. The young woman motioned to a photograph on the box in which she appeared and introduced herself. She was Melanie Griffith. At the time she was filming Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild" in the Tallahassee area.

While living in Los Angeles as a teenager, he visited one of the major Hollywood studios with the dream of personally meeting his favorite producer Robert Evans and give him a copy of one of his early screenplays. However, more than 20 years would go by before Charles could finally have the opportunity (and privilege) to meet and interview the legendary Mr. Evans in Boca Raton, Florida during the Palm Beach Film Festival. Evans generously presented him with an autographed copy of his classic book "The Kid Stays in the Picture".

As of 2005, he is the youngest entertainment writer in the history of Spanish-language journalism in the United States to have interviewed the most Oscar winners and nominees. They include: Clint Eastwood, Adrien Brody, Bernardo Bertolucci, Danis Tanovic, Sir Ben Kingsley, Maurice Jarre, Mira Sorvino, Ron Howard, Robert Redford, Jon Voight, Rod Steiger, Marcia Gay Harden, Andrzej Wajda, Denys Arcand, Benicio Del Toro, Fernando Trueba, Robert Duvall, Robert Wise, Rita Moreno, Martin Landau, Billy Bob Thornton, Frank Pierson, Brad Bird, Shirley MacLaine, Irene Cara, Alejandro Amenabar, Dame Judi Dench, Catherine Martin, Baz Luhrmann, Arthur Penn, Todd Field, Salma Hayek, Danny DeVito, Marshall Herskovitz, Jeff Bridges, Javier Bardem, James Schamus, Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu, Alfonso Cuaron, David Valdes, Norma Aleandro, Edward James Olmos, Fernando Meirelles, Andy Garcia, John Sayles, Tim Roth, Moctesuma Esparza, John Travolta, Jennifer Tilly, Barbet Schroeder, John Boorman, Stephen Frears, Quincy Jones, Randy Quaid, David Weisman, Hector Babenco, Peter Bogdanovich, Anne Archer, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Carlos Carrera, Jacques Perrin, Pablo Helman, Chris and Paul Weitz, Robert Evans, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Nia Vardalos, Taylor Hackford, Liv Ullmann, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Christian Carion, Meg Tilly, Jennifer Tilly, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Will Smith, Ruby Dee, Ernest Borgnine, Michael Shannon, Jacques Audiard, Juan Jose Campanella, Ryan Bingham, Ang Lee, Vera Farmiga, Jason Reitman, Carlos Cuaron, Woody Harrelson, Dustin Lance Black, Henry Selick, Gregory Nava, Melissa Leo, Brigitte Berman, Penelope Cruz, Rob Marshall, Sissy Spacek, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Neill Blomkamp, Catherine Keener, Patricia Neal, Charlize Theron, Bruce Beresford, Jake Gyllenhaal, Matt Dillon, Elisabeth Shue, Rachel Weisz, among others.

One of the United States' most respected and influential journalists in the Hispanic market specializing in the coverage of motion pictures, and all areas of entertainment from a multicultural, global perspective, Cotayo was selected for inclusion in the prestigious "Who's Who in America" for two consecutive years: 2008 and 2009.

Selected for inclusion in "Who's Who in the World" 2010.

Personal Quotes

I never take success personally. Like a good movie, it's always a collaborative effort.

The success of a dedicated writer, filmmaker or any artist should never be based on the so-called "sale" of anything; the magic of the daily journey of creative expression in good will and good faith is the greatest, most gratifying prize because it's the humble fruit, the priceless gift of selfless giving, that grows in the human heart to enrich the lives of others with beauty and excellence that truly possesses joy and everlasting value. That's nobility of spirit and an expression of what some may call divine love.