Wayne Kramer

Born: 1965
Where: South Africa

The writer and director made his big breakthrough with The Cooler for which Alec Baldwin was Oscar-nominated.

A fanatic about film, copies of The French Connection and Chinatown banned under South African law were once seized during a police raid.

He moved to America from South Africa aged 21 where the family stuggled barely supported by Kramer's salesman father.

He firstly became known as a writer - three of his screenplays were finalists in a screenwriting contest and a short film he wrote and directed was shown at festival and on TV.

In 1992, he made his feature debut with the horror/thriller Blazeland, which he followed up by Crossing Over.

The Cooler chronicled the story of loser William H Macy after he falls in love with a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas.