Keith Famie

Keith Famie
Born	(1960-02-11) February 11, 1960 Michigan, U.S.
Television	Survivor: The Australian Outback

Keith Famie (born February 11, 1960) is the executive producer and owner of Visionalist Entertainment Productions (VEP). Visionalist Entertainment Productions has been awarded eleven Michigan Chapter Emmy awards over the years for his human interest style films, which have all been broadcast on PBS. He is probably best known for being a contestant on the CBS reality television series, Survivor: The Australian Outback. He was the 14th person to be voted off and finished in 3rd place.

Early life

Keith was born and raised in Farmington Hills, Michigan, United States. He resides in Novi, Michigan, and is the father of two children, Josh and Alicia. While attending high school, he began working in restaurant kitchens. After graduation, he traveled the world working in hotels located in such places such as Brussels, Monte Carlo, and New York City.

Career

Famie opened his own restaurant in 1988, which was called Les Auteurs: an American Bistro, and in the same year was recognized in Food & Wine magazine as one of the "10 Best New Chefs". Les Auteurs was featured in Esquire Magazine's "Best New Restaurants of 1988." In 1993, Famie began making television appearances in cooking segments for local Detroit television stations. The popular segments ultimately led to several half-hour specials airing in Detroit. In 1998, he wrote a cookbook, Famie's Adventures in Cooking, which is published by Sleeping Bear Press.

In 1997, Visionalist Entertainment Productions was established by Famie, who created a series for various network-affiliate television stations based on his adventurous cooking in exotic locations around the globe. Produced both in short news format segments and hour-long documentaries, Famie quickly developed his own unique style of film production.

Following his appearances on Survivor, Famie continued his cooking-related writing and television appearances, albeit with a larger following, hosting a television series, Keith Famie's Adventures, for the Food Network, in which Famie traveled to various destinations to present local cuisine. According to the Food Network website, 30 episodes were produced. The pilot episode videotaped in Kenya debuted Monday, November 12, 2001. Another 28 half-hour episodes, and a one-hour special taped in Tahiti, were first broadcast in 2002. The title of his first post-Survivor cookbook, "Yes I Can Cook Rice and So Can You" referenced Famie's Survivor depiction.

In 2003, Famie published You Haven't Been There Until You've Eaten The Food. The book was published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers in New York. There are over 130 recipes in this book, covering his visits to six foreign countries and three U.S. states.

Documentary films

Since then, Famie and his VEP team have produced a wide range of primetime programs, all winning a total of eleven Emmy awards. VEP has also won several national awards for their productions. Visionalist Entertainment Productions has produced the following films:

• Ice Warriors
• The 'Our Story Of' series
  • Our Italian Story
  • Our Polish Story
  • Our Greek Story
  • Our Arab American Story
  • Our India Story
  • Detroit: Our Greatest Generation
  • Our Vietnam Generation
• Can You See How I See?
• One Soldier's Story
• Enlisted
• The Embrace of Aging: The female perspective of growing old
• The Embrace of Aging: The male perspective of growing old
• The Embrace of Dying: How we deal with the end of life
• Death is Not the Answer
• Maire's Journey
• A Day in the Life of Elijah
• Those on the Front Lines of Alzheimer's and Dementia

In 2019, Keith Famie and Visionalist Entertainment Productions released two documentary films - Those on the Front Lines of Cancer and Blessed Solanus Casey's Journey to Sainthood.

External links

• Visionalist Entertainment Productions
• Keith Famie biography for Survivor: The Australian Outback at CBS.com