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Ken Finkleman (born 1946) is a Canadians television and screenwriter, film producer, film director, actor, and novelist. New York Times
He began his career doing radio and TV work at the CBC, teaming up with Rick Moranis, then a Toronto DJ. The two of them performed in a series of live performances on CBC Television's 90 Minutes Live, comedy radio specials and television comedy pilots including one called Midweek and one called 1980 (produced at CBLT-DT in 1979). Both pilots starred Finkleman and Moranis in a series of irreverent sketches including an early mockumentary sketch featuring Moranis as a Canadian movie producer and another featuring the dubbed in voiced overs of Nazi war criminals as they appear to be discussing their Hollywood agents and the money one can earn being interviewed on major documentary series like The World At War.
In 1982, Finkleman was tasked with writing two sequels to blockbuster films for Paramount Pictures, Grease 2 and (also directing the latter), after the creative teams behind the original films declined to take part. Finkleman was given much larger budgets than his predecessors were, but both films, while still earning a profit, underperformed at the box office and were unfavourably reviewed by film critics. His television productions are seen, in part, as a reaction to his experiences in the mainstream Hollywood film studio system.
Finkleman also wrote the 2010 novel Noah's Turn. His brother, Danny Finkleman, is a longtime radio personality on CBC Radio One, who retired as host of Finkleman's 45s in 2005. Finkleman and his former wife Marion L. Cohen, a judge of the Ontario Court of Justice, have two children.
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