Rodman Flender, born on June 9, 1962, in New York City, is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and producer.
Raised in a culturally Jewish but non-religious family, Flender grew up immersed in the arts, influenced by his parents’ creative backgrounds.
His mother, Enid Rodman, was a former Broadway dancer, and his father, Harold Flender, was a writer and screenwriter known for his novel Paris Blues, adapted into a 1961 film starring Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman.
Flender’s early exposure to theater and storytelling shaped his multifaceted career in entertainment.
He honed his acting skills at New York’s High School of Performing Arts and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London before studying visual and environmental studies at Harvard University, where he also contributed to The Harvard Lampoon.
Siblings
Rodman has one sibling, an older sister named Nicole Flender.
Nicole, born to Enid Rodman and Harold Flender, grew up alongside Rodman in New York City, initially in an apartment on Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side.
After their father’s passing in 1975, Nicole, Rodman, and their mother moved to Manhattan Plaza in Hell’s Kitchen, a federally subsidized artists’ building under the Mitchell-Lama program.
Career
Flender’s career is marked by its diversity, spanning acting, directing, producing, and writing across film, television, and documentaries.
His early acting roles included playing Mischa in the Broadway production Zalmen or the Madness of God and Charles Francis Adams in the PBS series The Adams Chronicles.
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After graduating from Harvard in 1984, Flender joined Roger Corman’s Concorde-New Horizons Films, initially running the advertising department before becoming Vice President of Production for two years, where he produced films like Body Chemistry, Streets, and Full Fathom Five.
His directorial debut came with the 1991 thriller The Unborn, produced under Corman’s banner, which received favorable reviews.
Flender went on to direct feature films such as Leprechaun 2 (1994) for Trimark and Idle Hands (1999) for Columbia Pictures, though Leprechaun 2 famously holds a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
His television directing credits are extensive, including episodes of comedies like The Office, Ugly Betty, and Suburgatory, dramas such as Gilmore Girls, The O.C., and Chicago Hope, and horror series like HBO’s Tales From the Crypt and Scream.
As a writer, Flender contributed to Tales From the Crypt and wrote the feature film Dracula Rising for Corman.
His passion for documentaries led to Let Them Eat Rock (2005), a portrait of the Boston-based rock band The Upper Crust, and Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop (2011), which chronicled Conan O’Brien’s post-Tonight Show comedy tour, a project that earned critical acclaim.
Flender’s more recent work includes directing episodes of People of Earth (2016-2017), On Becoming a God in Central Florida (2019) starring Kirsten Dunst, and the horror-comedy Eat, Brains, Love (2019), which premiered at the London FrightFest Film Festival.
Accolades
Flender’s documentary Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop was a standout, earning a place on Roger Ebert’s list of the best documentaries of 2011, praised for its candid behind-the-scenes look at Conan O’Brien’s resilience following the 2010 Tonight Show conflict.
His 2019 film Eat, Brains, Love, a blend of romantic comedy and horror, won Best Picture at the 2019 Screamfest Horror Film Festival and received positive reviews at the London FrightFest Film Festival, showcasing his ability to merge genres effectively.
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