Born in Pasadena, California. Parents Elizabeth Rose Kemper Leone, and Michael F. Leone. One of six children. Father federal judge, mother nurse and homemaker. Attended Southern California public schools, then Phillips Academy, Andover; then Harvard. Studied poetry with Robert Fitzgerald, directed and wrote musical plays, played professional rock music. Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing at Stanford, then Directing Fellow at the American Film Institute. Worked with brother Michael Leone, in family-owned company that owned recording studios, and produced, financed and distributed 28 films in ten years from 1972-1982, including the first anti-Vietnam War film, 'Go Tell The Spartans'. He also wrote Mexico in 1996 and Jihad in 2005 for Oliver Stone and Jedgar & Clyde in 2004 for Sean Penn. Published 2010 novel 'The Crowd Dreams of Love'. Has US, Irish, and Italian citizenship, (2014) lives in Palermo, Sicily, and London.

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John Leone

Director

Writer