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Bruce Kimmel

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Bruce Kimmel (born December 8, 1947), also known as Guy Haines, is an actor, writer, director, composer, and Grammy-nominated CD producer. Kimmel lives in Los Angeles. He has one daughter.

Acting

As an actor, Kimmel appeared in many TV shows, such as The Partridge Family (multiple episodes), Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Alice, M*A*S*H, Donny and Marie (four guest shots), and numerous pilots. He also acted in the films The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975), The First Nudie Musical (1976), First Family (1980) and The Creature Wasn't Nice (1983).

Film director

He is the writer and director of The First Nudie Musical (1976), The Creature Wasn't Nice (1983), Prime Suspect (1989). Currently writing and directing a new web series, Outside the Box, an exclusive web series at Broadway World (www.broadwayworld.com). The first two seasons (six episodes each) have been aired, and season three begins shooting in April 2013. UPDATE: The third season of Outside the Box never filmed. However, the show has now been exclusively licensed to the new Broadway streaming channel STAGE - it begins airing in late 2018.

Theater director

He has also written many plays/musicals, including a thriller, Deceit (2006), and the musical, The Brain From Planet X (2006). The Brain is a spoof of 1950s alien invasion movies and was featured in 2008's Festival of New American Musicals with a run at The Chance Theater in Anaheim, California.

In 2011, he directed a new musical revue, Lost and Unsung, based on his albums "Lost in Boston" and "Unsung Musicals". More recently he directed Li'l Abner and Inside Out. In 2016, he created a new musical revue, L.A. Now and Then, "a love-letter to Los Angeles, the city that was and the city that is."

In 2017, he directed a critically acclaimed production of Dial M for Murder, as well as the world premiere of a new musical, Levi, the story of Levi Strauss, with a book by Larry Cohen (the It's Alive trilogy) and a score by the Sherman Brothers. This show, originally written in 1979, was unproduced until now. Kimmel provided additional material to the book as well as the lyrics to a new song with music by Richard M. Sherman.

Record producer

Kimmel became a record producer in 1993, producing many cast albums (Broadway and off-Broadway), Broadway singers, and musical theater concept albums, first for the Varese Sarabande label, and then for a company he founded Fynsworth Alley. He was nominated for a Grammy for the revival cast album of Hello, Dolly!. To date, he has produced well over 180 CDs, including such beloved albums as the Unsung Musicals and Lost in Boston series, Unsung Sondheim, The Stephen Schwartz Album, The Alan Menken Album, The Stephen Sondheim Album, Sondheim at the Movies, a classic series of Sondheim shows in jazz with Terry Trotter, vocal albums with Petula Clark, Helen Reddy, Liz Callaway, Laurie Beechman, Rebecca Luker, Jason Graae, Brent Barrett, Michelle Nicastro, cast albums for The King and I, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, Bells Are Ringing, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (with Ann-Margret), Little Me (with Martin Short), and many, many others.

His current label Kritzerland has issued close to 300 albums including cast albums, singers, and a series of reissues of limited edition soundtracks.

Kimmel, who is also a songwriter, recently produced his third album with singer Sandy Bainum (the first two were entitled This Christmas and Simply) – this album, "It Might Be Fun" features all Kimmel original songs, including his collaboration with Oscar-winning Richard M. Sherman (of the Sherman Brothers), "Two Roads." At the 2015 Mac Awards, Kimmel's song "Simply" won the award for Best Song of the Year.

Author

Kimmel has written twelve novels – his coming-of-age trilogy, Benjamin Kritzer, Kritzerland, and Kritzer Time, the mysteries Writer's Block and Rewind, and a mystery series featuring fifteen-year-old protagonist Adriana Hofstetter – Murder at Hollywood High, Murder at the Grove, Murder at the Hollywood Historical Society, Murder at The Masquers, Murder at the School Musical, and his latest, Murder at the Hollywood Division." In 2014 he wrote his first western, "Red Gold". He has also written a book of short fiction called How To Write A Dirty Book and Other Stories.

He published his memoir of his acting, writing, and directing days, There's Mel, There's Woody, and There's You, in mid-2010.

He published the new Adriana Hofstetter mystery, Murder at the Masquers, in 2011. In the fourth book in the Hofstetter series, Adriana turns sixteen.

In April 2012 Kimmel's new book, Album Produced By, was published. It's a follow-up memoir that picks up where There's Mel, There's Woody, and There's You left off.

In May 2013, the fifth in the Adriana Hofstetter series will be published – Murder at the School Musical.

In March 2014, Red Gold a western about a ten-year-old Jewish boy living in a boom town circa 1880, was published, his fourteenth book.

In March 2015, the sixth book in the Adriana Hofstetter series, Murder at the Hollywood Division was published.

In March 2016, Kimmel's sixteenth book was published - the comic novel, "Patrick Bronstein Presents" Patrick Bronstein, the lead character, appears in the Adriana Hofstetter mysteries starting with the third book.

In March 2017, Kimmel's seventeenth book was published, the time travel novel Thrill Ride.

In March 2018, Kimmel's eighteenth book was published - GEE, the story of two different women from two different eras.

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