Trivia

Jeremy Leven was born in South Bend, Indiana and grew up in Chicago; Yuba City, California; Olympia, Washington; and Rye, New York. He was educated at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, Harvard University, the University of Connecticut and Yale University Medical School, where he was a fellow at the Department of Psychiatry's Child Studies Center.

He and his wife, Roberta Danza, a psychotherapist, currently divide their time between Woodbridge, Connecticut, New York City, and Paris. (February 2011)

He wrote an early draft of the script for The Time Traveler's Wife (2009).

At the end of 1980s Jeremy went to Moscow, USSR and started pre-production of a joint movie project with Mosfilm Studios, but unfortunately, the project fell through due to issues with financing.

He has been a television producer-director at the NBC-TV outlet in Boston, a psychologist at the State Hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts, a Mental Health Center Director, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and Director of Children and Drug Treatment Programs for Western Massachusetts. In 1968 he founded, wrote and directed "The Proposition," a frequently changing political satirical review that ran in Cambridge, Massachusetts for 10 years and Off-Broadway.

In April 2006, Leven was awarded a Special Award for Outstanding Achievement by the SunDeis Film Festival at Brandeis University. Due to a scheduling conflict, he was unable to attend, but his step-son, the up-and-coming filmmaker John Krokidas, accepted the award on his behalf.

In September 2005, Leven was awarded Connecticut Outstanding Filmmaker of the Year award.

In April 2006, at Monaco's annual Cinema and Literature International Forum, Prince Albert of Monaco awarded Leven the Prix du Meilleur Scénariste d'Adaptations Littéraires (Best Screenwriter) Award.

The works of Fyodor Dostoevsky have twice provided the inspiration for Leven's screenplays. Leven's The Gambler was based on the story of Dostoevsky's writing of his novella of the same name (Dostoevsky wrote the story under a strict deadline to pay off gambling debts) and was filmed by Rob Reiner as Alex & Emma (2003). Leven's script The Double, about a man whose life is taken over by his doppelganger, was based on Dostoevsky's novella of the same name and came close to being filmed in 1996 before creative differences between director Roman Polanski and lead actor John Travolta led to the project being cancelled.