Award-Winning Writer and Producer
Robert Eisele, a graduate of UCLA Film School, also earned his Master of Fine Arts there in Theater and Playwriting. He was granted a playwriting fellowship at the Tony Award-winning American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, where his play ANIMALS ARE PASSING FROM OUR LIVES was produced, and later published then staged by several theaters across the country. While at A.C.T., Eisele had the good fortune of meeting Tennessee Williams and Peter Shaffer, both major influences on his writing.
When a play of Eisele’s was produced at David Mamet’s St. Nicholas Theatre in Chicago during the worst winter there in twenty years, he had an epiphany: It was time to write for film and television. Eisele’s first produced TV credit, an episode of the Emmy-winning series CAGNEY & LACEY, won the Humanitas Prize and caught the attention of Michael Mann, who hired him as Story Editor for the critically acclaimed premiere season of CRIME STORY. Eisele moved on to become Supervising Producer of the original version of THE EQUALIZER. Both series were voted among the top twenty episodic dramas of their decade by the Associated Press.
Eisele’s series work brought him overall writing/producing deals at Warner Brothers, Universal and Paramount. He had two pilots made, as well as the critically acclaimed Showtime movie LAST LIGHT (WRITERS GUILD AWARD nominee), and LILY IN WINTER (USA Network Event movie, WRITERS GUILD AWARD nominee and PEN Literary Award nominee), all of which he executive produced.
In the 2000’s, Eisele was executive producer and co-showrunner of the Showtime series RESURRECTION BLVD., which won the 2001 ALMA AWARD for Outstanding Television Series. Eisele’s RESURRECTION BLVD. teleplay, NINO DEL POLVO (CHILD OF THE DUST), received a WRITERS GUILD AWARD nomination, the third of his career and the first for a Showtime series.
Eisele’s ESPN film, “3: THE DALE EARNHARDT STORY,” received the second highest rating for any cable movie that season. The same year, he did the production rewrite of the film RAY (uncredited) for director Taylor Hackford. RAY received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and won two Academy Awards, one for Jamie Foxx as Best Actor.
Eisele’s screenplay for THE GREAT DEBATERS was produced in 2007, directed by and starring Denzel Washington. The film also starred Denzel’s fellow Academy Award winner, Forest Whitaker, and garnered a 2008 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD NOMINATION for Best Picture, and won the NAACP IMAGE AWARD for Best Picture. Eisele’s script won the Writers Guild of America’s PAUL SELVIN AWARD, THE CHRISTOPHER AWARD, and received an IMAGE AWARD nomination for Best Screenplay. The movie also won the Producers Guild of America’s STANLEY KRAMER AWARD, the National Board of Review’s FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AWARD, the Women Film Critics Circle’s JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD, and the African American Film Critics Association’s BEST PICTURE AWARD.
Eisele’s original screenplay, HURRICANE SEASON, starring Forest Whitaker and Academy Award nominee, Taraji Henson, was released in 2009.
2024 will see the release of Eisele’s latest film, THE SENIOR, which he wrote and executive produced for Wayfarer Studios. Rod Lurie directed Michael Chiklis and Mary Stuart Masterson, with Mark Ciardi producing.
Other recent projects in development include FOX IN THE WOLF’S LAIR, Eisele’s screenplay about King Boris of Bulgaria in World War II. Although pressured into an alliance with Hitler, Boris found a way to save his nation – not a single Bulgarian Jew died in the Holocaust. Taylor Hackford will direct with Pressman Films producing. Eisele’s script CYCLONE, the story of America’s first Black world champion – bicycle racer Major Taylor in the late 1890s – will be directed by NAACP Image Award-winning director Clement Virgo, and produced by Mind’s Eye Entertainment. Eisele’s screenplay ANGEL IN THE RUBBLE, about the last survivor pulled from the rubble of 9/11, is being managed by Echo Lake Entertainment.