Zalman King

Directing

Zalman King

Born 1942-05-23 · Trenton, New Jersey, USA

​From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Zalman King (born Zalman King Lefkowitz; May 23, 1942 – February 3, 2012) was an American film director, writer, actor and producer. His films are known for incorporating sexuality, and are often categorized as erotica. He was born Zalman Lefkovitz in Trenton, New Jersey, U.S. As a young man in 1963 he played a gang member on Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("Memo from Purgatory" written by Harlan Ellison) with James Caan and Walter Koenig. In 1967 he played the outlaw Muley in "Muley", an episode of the TV show Gunsmoke. His character shoots Marshall Matt Dillon as part of a plan to rob the Dodge City Bank, but as he and his gang are waiting for Dillon to recover (so they can try again to kill him), Muley falls in love with one of the girls at the Long Branch Saloon, which thwarts the plan. From September 1970 until May 1971, King played attorney Aaron Silverman on the drama The Young Lawyers, broadcast on the ABC television network. King later contributed a unique delivery to Trip with the Teacher (1975), portraying the psychopathic Al, a narcoleptic murdering motorbiker. King has directed several commercially successful films, including Two Moon Junction (1988), Wild Orchid (1990), and Red Shoe Diaries (1992), which became a long-running television series for Showtime network. It spawned many sequels. He is perhaps best known for his collaboration with director Adrian Lyne on the film 9½ Weeks which starred Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke. He produced (and usually directed) the television series and film ChromiumBlue.com and Showtime series Body Language. He appeared in Lee Grant's directorial debut feature film Tell Me a Riddle. Other work as director includes the 1995 film Delta of Venus based on the book by Anaïs Nin and starring Audie England. The film about an American girl living in Paris in 1939 is in many ways reminiscent of European art house films where erotica forms a centerpiece to a plot which is nevertheless about greater issues. He is married to writer/producer Patricia Louisianna Knop. They have collaborated on many projects, such as writing Wild Orchid, Delta of Venus and 9½ Weeks as well as many episodes of Red Shoe Diaries. They have two daughters, Chloe King and Gillian Lefkowitz. Description above from the Wikipedia article Zalman King, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Galaxy of Terror poster
5.3

As a lone spaceship proceeds on its long voyage across space, the crew are surprised to encounter a strange pyramid form. Surprise turns to horror as one by one, they discover that their darkest nightmares are all starting to become real. The pyramid has to be behind it all somehow, but how can they save themselves from its influence?

Galaxy of Terror

1981

Celebrity Naked Ambition poster
5.3

Documentary looking at how nudity has been used in the movies, sometimes shrewdly and other times without thought.

Celebrity Naked Ambition

2003

Blue Sunshine poster
5.7

At a party, someone goes insane and murders three women. Falsely accused of the brutal killings, Jerry is on the run. More bizarre homicides continue with alarming frequency all over town. Trying to clear his name, Jerry discovers the shocking truth...people are losing their hair and turning into violent psychopaths and the connection may be some LSD all the murderers took a decade before.

Blue Sunshine

1977

Playboy: The Story of X poster
6.8

The Story of X takes you to the earliest days of adult films when men peddled stag reels and projectors out of the trunks of their cars, then through the movie house years to the arrival of the home video business, and now the Internet. Meet the men behind the camera, such as "King of Sexploitation" Dave Friedman and the preeminent breast man Russ Meyer. Considered pariahs at the time, they're now hailed as pioneers in the fight against censorship. The Story of X visits the 60s when women's rights, not nudity, became the issue and recounts porn's arrival in Hollywood, led by director Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris. In the 70s, several groundbreaking films, including Behind the Green Door featuring Marilyn Chambers and Deep Throat featuring Linda Lovelace, took the genre to a new level.

Playboy: The Story of X

1998

The Beaches of Agnès poster
7.7

Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new wave, turns the camera on herself with this unique autobiographical documentary. Composed of film excerpts and elaborate dramatic re-creations, Varda's self-portrait recounts the highs and lows of her professional career, the many friendships that affected her life and her longtime marriage to cinematic giant Jacques Demy.

The Beaches of Agnès

2008

Endangered Species poster
4.9

A retired New York cop on vacation in America's West is drawn into a sheriff's investigation of a mysterious series of cattle killings.

Endangered Species

1982

The Foreign Eye poster
6.1

Fantasies and clichés about Brazil and Brazilians as reinforced by international films, even those actually shot in Brazil. This documentary features interviews with non-Brazilian directors, writers and stars who have been involved in some of those films.

The Foreign Eye

2006

Stranger on the Run poster
5.7

A drifter finds himself wrongly accused of murder by a power-crazed sheriff. The sheriff gives him a horse, some supplies, and a one-hour head start into the desert before sending his murderous posse after him.

Stranger on the Run

1967

The Intruders poster
5.0

The James and Younger outlaw gangs ride into town, and it is up to the local marshal, who has lost both his nerve and his gun skills, to stop them.

The Intruders

1970

Neither by Day Nor by Night poster
10.0

An American soldier is wounded in Israel and slowly begins to lose his sight while hospitalized.

Neither by Day Nor by Night

1972

No artwork available
7.0

An intellectually-challenged man and woman meet, fall in love, and are determined to get married, despite the initial objections of their families and friends. Based on a true story.

Like Normal People

1979

The Dangerous Days of Kiowa Jones poster
8.0

A dying marshal deputizes a drifter to deliver the two killers in his custody to prison. However, the new deputy must elude a pair of bounty hunters who want to deliver the prisoners themselves to collect the reward and would think nothing of killing the deputy to get them.

The Dangerous Days of Kiowa Jones

1966

The Passover Plot poster
4.7

Yeshua of Nazareth carefully plans his own crucifixion — and subsequent resurrection — to strengthen his political position against the Roman occupation of Palestine.

The Passover Plot

1976

The Young Lawyers poster
10.0

Attorney Michael Cannon leaves his Boston law firm to become director of the Neighborhood Law Office, where he guides three law students on a case involving two visiting musicians accused of robbing and beating up a cab driver. TV-pilot that was an ABC Movie of the Week in October of 1969 and then became a TV-series as part of the 1970-71 season.

The Young Lawyers

1969

Trip with the Teacher poster
4.3

A high-school field trip takes a nightmarish turn when the students' bus breaks down and thugs come to their aid.

Trip with the Teacher

1975

The Ski Bum poster
4.8

A ski instructor tries to teach a bunch of insanely eccentric people how to ski while dealing with everyone wanting his attention.

The Ski Bum

1971

Some Call It Loving poster
5.0

A jazz musician falls in love with a comatose woman at a carny sideshow and takes her to his mansion to join his cabinet of sexual curiosities.

Some Call It Loving

1973

Smile Jenny, You're Dead poster
6.8

David Janssen (The Fugitive) portrays dogged detective Harry in the telefilm that was the second of two pilots preceding his memorable Harry O series. Among the highlights: young Jodie Foster as Liberty, the wise-beyond-her-years homeless waif Harry befriends.

Smile Jenny, You're Dead

1974

Tell Me a Riddle poster
6.8

Aging couple David and Eva have lost the spark that once infused their marriage. After nearly four decades together, the elderly duo is feel disconnected and lost. When they discover that Eva is sick, they decide to travel across the country to stay with their granddaughter in San Francisco. On the trip, with Eva's possible death looming, the couple rediscovers the passion and love that had been missing from their lives.

Tell Me a Riddle

1980

Saint Francis poster
3.1

Francis, the son of a corrupt TV preacher, tumbles down a hallucinatory rabbit-hole of sex, drugs, aliens, fratricide, and planetary apocalypse in this twisted take on the life of Saint Francis.

Saint Francis

2007

The Love Song of Charles Faberman poster
7.0

An episodic tragicomedy of a lawyer, his wife, the people of East Los Angeles, and a viola, all intermixed as the lawyer seeks refuge from the establishment's injustices and his own marital failure through music and nostalgia.

The Love Song of Charles Faberman

1972

No artwork available
8.0

A restaurateur unwisely misappropriates mob money in order to buy a house for his ageing father.

Sammy Somebody

1976

You've Got To Walk It Like You Talk It or You'll Lose That Beat poster
8.7

This oddball counterculture comedy/drama follows Zalman King through a series of kooky misadventures while he searches for his life's purpose in New York City.

You've Got To Walk It Like You Talk It or You'll Lose That Beat

1971

No artwork available
NR

"...an impressive dark comedy about a young film student at UCLA who is as much in love with the idea of being a director as he is with himself. At a party, he meets a lively girl, Elaine, who half-jokingly agrees to be the student's leading lady. The natural growth of their relationship and how it is stunted is the basis for the film, and what happens to the spectator is that he recognizes, behind the laughter in the comic situation's shown, the tragic aversion of Americans to get really deeply involved with anything or anyone until absolutely necessary." - Albert Johnson, San Francisco International Film Festival

Whiskey Flats

1969

Behind the camera

Nine 1/2 Weeks poster
6.1

An erotic story about a woman, the assistant of an art gallery, who gets involved in an impersonal affair with a man. She barely knows about his life, only about the sex games they play, so the relationship begins to get complicated.

Nine 1/2 Weeks

1986

Nine 1/2 Weeks poster
6.1

An erotic story about a woman, the assistant of an art gallery, who gets involved in an impersonal affair with a man. She barely knows about his life, only about the sex games they play, so the relationship begins to get complicated.

Nine 1/2 Weeks

1986

Wild Orchid poster
5.3

A woman lawyer becomes mesmerized by a self-made millionaire during an encounter in Rio setting off a series of erotic encounters.

Wild Orchid

1989

Wild Orchid poster
5.3

A woman lawyer becomes mesmerized by a self-made millionaire during an encounter in Rio setting off a series of erotic encounters.

Wild Orchid

1989

Pleasure or Pain poster
4.8

A young designer falls under a man's erotic spell and is drawn into a world of sexual abandon from which she may never return.

Pleasure or Pain

2013

Pleasure or Pain poster
4.8

A young designer falls under a man's erotic spell and is drawn into a world of sexual abandon from which she may never return.

Pleasure or Pain

2013

Two Moon Junction poster
6.1

A young Southern débutante temporarily abandons her posh lifestyle and upcoming, semi-arranged marriage to have a lustful and erotic fling with a rugged drifter who works at a local carnival.

Two Moon Junction

1988

Two Moon Junction poster
6.1

A young Southern débutante temporarily abandons her posh lifestyle and upcoming, semi-arranged marriage to have a lustful and erotic fling with a rugged drifter who works at a local carnival.

Two Moon Junction

1988

Boca poster
3.6

A photo-journalist goes to Brazil to investigate a savage crime boss. She becomes infatuated with the story.

Boca

1994

Delta of Venus poster
4.4

A struggling American writer and a fellow American expatriate begin a sordid affair among the chaos and discord of 1940 Paris, France on the brink of World War II.

Delta of Venus

1995

Red Shoe Diaries poster
4.9

A man grieving the loss of his fiancée discovers a diary she kept that details a side of her he never knew. In an effort to understand, he reaches out in an unusual way by placing an ad asking for women’s diaries and hearing their stories.

Red Shoe Diaries

1992

Red Shoe Diaries poster
4.9

A man grieving the loss of his fiancée discovers a diary she kept that details a side of her he never knew. In an effort to understand, he reaches out in an unusual way by placing an ad asking for women’s diaries and hearing their stories.

Red Shoe Diaries

1992

Lake Consequence poster
4.5

A repressed housewife is plunged into erotic ecstasy by the arrival of a handsome groundskeeper. At a remote lake, she is encouraged by the groundskeeper and his lover to explore her deepest sexual desires.

Lake Consequence

1995

Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue poster
5.3

Blue is a teenage girl who lives with her Jazz playing father Ham. Ham gets very sick and dies, and now Blue must support herself somehow. Elle, the headmistress at a brothel, talks her into living and working at her establishment. She decides to leave the business and lead a normal life. Elle is hellbent to see that she never has one.

Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue

1991

Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue poster
5.3

Blue is a teenage girl who lives with her Jazz playing father Ham. Ham gets very sick and dies, and now Blue must support herself somehow. Elle, the headmistress at a brothel, talks her into living and working at her establishment. She decides to leave the business and lead a normal life. Elle is hellbent to see that she never has one.

Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue

1991

Red Shoe Diaries 3: Another Woman's Lipstick poster
8.7

Just Like That: A receptionist in a large firm cheats on her voyeuristic lover with a delivery boy who has a crush on her. Another Woman's Lipstick: A young wife discovers lipstick on her husband's collar. She follows him, meets his mistress, and has a lesbian fling with her. Talk To Me, Baby: A man caught cheating in a bar by his wife admits his past dalliances on the drive home, which gets his wife aroused.

Red Shoe Diaries 3: Another Woman's Lipstick

1993

Women of the Night poster
4.1

Three entwined stories of love, lust, danger and revenge.

Women of the Night

2001

Women of the Night poster
4.1

Three entwined stories of love, lust, danger and revenge.

Women of the Night

2001

Kamikaze Love Volume 1 - Craving Intensity poster
6.0

Victoria is a beautiful, young woman just beginning to succeed in L.A. as a jewelry designer. Then she meets Jack, a handsome and enormously rich entrepreneur... and her life changes forever. He courts her with a combination of charm and sensuality that she finds irresistible. Everything is better and more intense than she has ever experienced - the romance, the sex, the orgasms, everything. No matter what he asks, she will do it to please him. She doesn't see herself as a victim. She is a willing co-conspirator. He continues to push the erotic envelope further and further, plunging Victoria into a world of sexuality that she never dreamed existed. Finally, it gets too much for her and that begins a dark, downward spiral that almost costs Victoria her sanity and her life. She is able to escape by the skin of her teeth and then decides to tell her story as a cautionary tale for other women who may face this same kind of thrilling but dangerous total sexual possession.

Kamikaze Love Volume 1 - Craving Intensity

2021

Kamikaze Love Volume 1 - Craving Intensity poster
6.0

Victoria is a beautiful, young woman just beginning to succeed in L.A. as a jewelry designer. Then she meets Jack, a handsome and enormously rich entrepreneur... and her life changes forever. He courts her with a combination of charm and sensuality that she finds irresistible. Everything is better and more intense than she has ever experienced - the romance, the sex, the orgasms, everything. No matter what he asks, she will do it to please him. She doesn't see herself as a victim. She is a willing co-conspirator. He continues to push the erotic envelope further and further, plunging Victoria into a world of sexuality that she never dreamed existed. Finally, it gets too much for her and that begins a dark, downward spiral that almost costs Victoria her sanity and her life. She is able to escape by the skin of her teeth and then decides to tell her story as a cautionary tale for other women who may face this same kind of thrilling but dangerous total sexual possession.

Kamikaze Love Volume 1 - Craving Intensity

2021

Business for Pleasure poster
3.7

A voyeuristic tycoon orchestrates a risky, passion-charged triangle between himself, his right-hand man, and a beautiful executive. Another classy, erotic production from Zalman King

Business for Pleasure

1997

Business for Pleasure poster
3.7

A voyeuristic tycoon orchestrates a risky, passion-charged triangle between himself, his right-hand man, and a beautiful executive. Another classy, erotic production from Zalman King

Business for Pleasure

1997

In God's Hands poster
5.0

Three pro surfers - gifted Shane, once-great Mickey and rising young star Keoni travel to Madagascar, Bali and Hawaii in search for the ultimate wave.

In God's Hands

1998

In God's Hands poster
5.0

Three pro surfers - gifted Shane, once-great Mickey and rising young star Keoni travel to Madagascar, Bali and Hawaii in search for the ultimate wave.

In God's Hands

1998