in FO C US
J eff Stimmel’s film career started at
the University of Pittsburgh, blos-
somed in Pittsburgh and flourished
with moves to Washington, D.C.,
New York City and L.A. Yet somehow, the
Mt. Lebanon native can’t seem to shake
his Pittsburgh roots. Stimmel’s new docu-
mentary, The Art of Failure: Chuck Connelly
Not for Sale, focuses on Pittsburgh native
Chuck Connelly, and Stimmel, who direct-
ed and produced the film, shot several
scenes in his hometown. The film debuts
on HBO July 7.

The film follows several years in the life
of Connelly, an artist and Pleasant Hills
native who struck it big in the art world
in the 1980s (along with Julian Schnabel
and Jean-Michel Basquiat). Bad behavior,
drink and his unwillingness to deal with the
business side of the art world eventually
led to Connelly’s downfall.

Stimmel, a 1984 Mt. Lebanon High
School grad, followed Connelly for five
and a half years. “I didn’t expect it to take
so long,” says Stimmel, “but during the
filming, Chuck’s wife left him, his art gal-
lery dropped him and his bird died [the
bird’s funeral is in the movie]. I thought
if I stopped filming something else crazy
might happen.”
Stimmel has been working in TV and
movies since he graduated from the
University of Pittsburgh with a B.A. in film.

His first gig was interning as the trolley
operator on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

But it was the Pittsburgh filmmaking
boom in early ‘90s that really got Stimmel’s
foot in the door. As a location manager/
production manager, Stimmel scouted
locations for numerous films shot in and
around Pittsburgh, including Dogma,
which had scenes shot in the now gone
Burger King on Banksville Road. When
working on Bob Roberts, Stimmel had the
“surreal” experience of negotiating a rental
agreement for the high school theater with
his former high school principal. He also
negotiated rental agreements with Mt.

Lebanon Ice Rink Director Bob Hlebinsky
for the TV docudramas The Temptations
and the Oksana Baiul Story.

“It was really exciting when Curtis
Hanson [director of L.A. Confidential] sent
me the script for Wonder Boys and asked
me to find the ‘essence of Pittsburgh,’”
Stimmel says.

60 mtl • july/august 2008



Former Mt. Lebanon resident Jeff Stimmel (right) has directed and produced a documentary on artist and
Pittsburgh native Chuck Connelly (left). The documentary, which appears on HBO in July, follows Connelly
as he tries to return into the art world that turned its back on him in the 1980s.

When Stimmel’s wife, Joanna, was ac- home on Westover Road, where his mom,
cepted to graduate school at Georgetown Jeanine, still lives. Stimmel’s boyhood
University, Stimmel moved to Washington, friend Paul A. Anderson, also a Sunset
D.C., where he landed a job as a line pro- Hills native, arranged the movie’s music.

Several film companies, including
ducer/production manager with Discovery
Sundance, expressed interest in financ-
Channel. The nonfiction documentaries
ing the
film, but HBO and BBC won
he worked on there include The Message
out. To produce
and 9 Days In New
the movie, Stimmel
Hampshire. That
Jeff Stimmel's documentary
founded Divided
led to work with the
Eye Entertainment,
New York Times
on artist
Chuck Connelly
an independent pro-
documentary film
duction company
division, where
that also produces
he met Chuck
airs July 7 on HBO.

feature films, shorts
Connelly’s sister,
and commercials;
who complained
his wife
served as
the film’s associate pro-
that no one had done a film on her “crazy
ducer. The
Art of
Failure: Chuck Connelly
brother.” Intrigued, Stimmel headed to
Not for
Sale has
been accepted
at the
Connelly’s Philadelphia home for a visit.

2008 Los
Angeles Film
Festival. “I was stunned by the hundreds of paint-
Currently working on another documen-
ings in the house—in the attic, garage, bath-
tary about a mysterious British artist and a
rooms, bedrooms,” says Stimmel. “Chuck
short film on global warming, Stimmel will
was bigger than life and very charming.”
start work
this month on the CBS show
Stimmel says being a Pittsburgh native
Cold Case.

may have helped the two bond—“there
Stimmel, his wife and their daughter,
was a lot we could talk about,” he says,
Hanna, now reside in L.A., but Pittsburgh
adding, “there’s a strange kind of cama-
is never
far away. “There’s a Steelers’ bar
raderie between people from Pittsburgh.”
in Santa
Monica,” Stimmel says, adding,
Connelly and Stimmel returned to their
“When I
meet with agents, the first thing
hometown to film several scenes, includ-
they want
to know is ‘What was Fred
ing one at Andy Warhol’s grave in Bethel
Rogers like?’”
—M.A. JACKSON
Park—not far from Stimmel’s boyhood
www.mtlebanon.org 61