Biography

Has three children with his wife Christine Lahti: sons Wilson Lahti Schlamme and Joseph Schlamme; daughter, Emma K.

Considers his filmmaking breakthrough to have come when he directed a Bette Midler concert film in 1984.

He has visited the White House several times and, during the Clinton administration, once stayed the night in the Lincoln Bedroom. He drew on observations of White House staffers made during this visit to inspire the visual and behavioral style of the fictional staffers in The West Wing (1999), which he co-created with Aaron Sorkin.

Probably, the way I ended up in this business was because of air-conditioning. I was a big jock in high school; it was Houston, hot and humid, and tough to do two-a-day practices in football. The theater department [in high school] had the only air-conditioned class. I met someone there, a teacher called Cecil Pickett, who was enormously influential. And from that point on, I started to formulate what I wanted to do.