Trivia

Carl won the Duke/MCA-Universal Scholar Award while at Duke University in part for a short story he had written called "St. Elmo's Fire" about a girl he had an infatuation with while working as a bellhop at the St. Elmo Hotel. The story would inspire the Columbia Pictures feature Kurlander would write with director Joel Schumacher starring Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Andrew McCarthy, Ally Sheedy, Mare Winningham, Emilio Estevez, and Andi McDowell. Though Kurlander identified most with McCarthy's shy writer character, Emilio Estevez plays Kurlander's alter ego Kirbo and the object of his obsession is played by Andi McDowell. Kurlander remains friends with the real life waitress from the St. Elmo Hotel to this day.

While teaching at the University of Pittsburgh, Kurlander ended up filming the 50th anniversary celebration of the first polio vaccine, which led to the production of "The Shot Felt Round The World" which tells the story of how Jonas Salk and his team at the University of Pittsburgh pulled together with a nation to help conquer the most feared disease of the twentieth century.

Having moved back to his hometown to teach at the University of Pittsburgh for what he thought would be a one year Hollywood sabbatical, Kurlander's journey back home led to an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show", a feature documentary, "My Tale of Two Cities", and the creation of the Steeltown Entertainment Project, a non-profit which has helped Pittsburgh become more of player in the entertainment industry.

Kurlander wrote and directed his first short film "Caprice" about a young man who accidentally picks up a woman he does not realize is homeless, starring Kendall Conrad who would later become a noted fashion designer.

Kurlander's brother Thomas is an actor who had roles in the films "Kindergarten Cop" and "Young Guns II" and has appeared and starred in various movies for television.

On the DVD of "St. Elmo's Fire", director Joel Schumacher tells the story of Kurlander running after actress Demi Moore at the Universal Bungalow and asking her to come back to audition for the role of "Jules" that would be a break out role for the young actress. Demi Moore also alludes to this incident in her memoir "Inside Out" talking about how Joel sent his "assistant" which Kurlander was before co-writing the screenplay after her, and he caught up with her, panting that they were making a movie and asking if she was an actress.

He has been a visiting senior lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh in the Film Studies department since 2001.

Jenji Kohan wrote a subplot in "Weeds" where the younger son Shane dreams of moving to Pittsburgh as an homage to her friend Carl moving back to his hometown of Pittsburgh. The final episode of Season 2 is called "Pittsburgh", though the runner continues throughout the series.