THE COEN BROTHERS

Ethan and Joel Coen are two of St. Louis Park’s most famous native sons. Growing up in St. Louis Park, the filmmakers lived at 1425 Flag Ave. So.

From Wikipedia:

Joel Coen was born November 29, 1954, and has been married to actress Frances McDormand since 1984; they have an adopted baby named Pedro. Ethan Coen was born September 21, 1957, and is married to film editor Tricia Cooke. The brothers grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Their parents were both professors, their father specializing in economics at the University of Minnesota and their mother in art history at St. Cloud University.

When they were kids, Joel saved up enough money from mowing lawns to buy a Vivitar Super-8 camera, and together they remade movies they saw on television with a neighborhood kid, Mark Zimering (a.k.a. Zeimers), as the star. For example, Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey (1966) became Zeimers in Zambia, which also featured Ethan as a native with a spear.

Both of the Coen brothers attended Simon's Rock Early College (now Simon's Rock College of Bard) in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Simon's Rock is designed for bright students seeking to start their undergraduate education earlier than is normal. After graduating from Simon's Rock, Joel spent four years in the undergraduate film program at New York University where he made a 30-minute thesis film called Soundings. The film depicted a woman engaged in sex with her deaf boyfriend while verbally fantasizing about having sex with her boyfriend's best friend, who is listening in the next room. After also graduating from Simon's Rock, Ethan went to school at Princeton University and earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy. His senior thesis was a 39-page essay entitled, “Two Views of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy.”

After graduating from NYU, Joel worked as a production assistant on a variety of industrial films and music videos. He developed a talent for film editing and met Sam Raimi, who was looking for an assistant editor on his first feature film, The Evil Dead (1981).

For filmographies, see www.IMDB.com

The brothers' first theatrical film was Blood Simple, released in 1984. 

Home    St. Louis Park History    History Index    About the Society    Research Resources
Brookside Timeline    Something In The Water    The Re-Echo    Contact Us

This information comes from a variety of sources: newspapers, books, yearbooks, phone directories, interviews, etc. Given the varied sources, we cannot guarantee that all of this information is correct, and welcome any additions and corrections. Please contact us with your contributions and comments.