The Count of Monte Cristo

Describing his childhood as that of a typical Air Force brat and the oldest of 2 brothers and a sister, Kevin Reynolds graduated from Baylor University in Waco, Texas with a B.A. and then a J.D. (law degree) in the early 1970s. His father was a tenured psychology professor and University vice-president, who later became the school’s president and present (as of February 2000) chancellor. After law school, Reynolds practiced law in Austin for a couple of years but decided that his love for movies was too strong to allow him to continue be a lawyer. He packed all of his belongings in his car, drove to Los Angeles, and enrolled in USC film school, where he was later recognized for a student film (which later became Fandango (1985)) and befriended future actor-director Kevin Costner. When Steven Spielberg happened to run across Reynold’s student film on one occasion, he gave Reynolds a shot at directing a full-length version of the film, which was the mildly cultish road comedy, Fandango (1985), which is an embellishment on some true stories of Reynolds and his closest college friends at Baylor. –IMDb