André Weinfeld

After receiving a master's degree in psychology and French literature at the Sorbonne University, André Weinfeld - the son of Jean Weinfeld, a Bauhaus architect - was admitted as the head of his class at the renowned French Film School Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC).[2]

Weinfeld worked initially as a camera operator and then as a Cinematographer for several "French New Wave" short and full-length feature films, including collaborating with, among others, directors Philippe Garrel, Jean Eustache, Néstor Almendros, Dennis Berry, and Jackie Raynal, (on "Deux fois"). He became – at age 19 – one of the youngest television directors, producers and journalists in France.

For the next 10 years, André directed, produced and reported over 70 weekly news and documentary magazine programs and French Network Specials, covering everything from fashion to the 1960s and 1970s rock and roll and pop scenes in "Swinging London" and in the US for the TV show "Bouton Rouge"[3] at the Monterey International Pop Festival, the Woodstock Festival, working with many major musicians, among them Jimi Hendrix,[4] The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Cream,[5] The Who, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd, Johnny Hallyday, etc. Later on, this time as a War correspondent, André accepted several "hard news" assignments to Israel, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon during the Six-Day War, the Yom Kippur War and Saigon during the Vietnam War.

After serving for one year as a director of several feature and documentary films during his military service in the French Army Cinema Service (ECPA), André Weinfeld joined the McCann Erickson advertising agency in 1974 for a two-year stint as creative director and in 1976 went on to write and direct his first feature short La Bonne Nouvelle[6] (The Good News), with late "French New Wave" director Claude Chabrol, Thomas Chabrol, Christine Boisson, Michel Duchaussoy, Mary Marquet and Daniel Prévost, which was awarded the Grand Prize at the International London Film Festival and thereafter distributed in France by Warner-Columbia.

André then worked as a screenwriter for several French Films, among them La Clé sur la porte (1978)[7][8] starring French actors Patrick Dewaere and Annie Girardot.

Having moved to live and work in the USA in 1977, André started his own Production and Video Distribution Company while producing, writing and directing "From Raquel With Love" (1980)[9] a variety show TV Special with Raquel Welch, Mickey Rooney and Douglas Fairbanks Jr..

He then went on to produce all of Raquel's National Tour and Live Concerts in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe and Atlantic City and subsequently co-produced the Broadway Musical Woman of the Year by Fred Ebb and John Kander.

His work as a Commercial and Editorial Photographer for the Sygma Corbis news agency has appeared worldwide on the covers and in the pages of Life, Newsweek, Time, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Playboy, and others. His photographs have also been chosen to represent Hasselblad's renowned professional camera products in one of that company's recent international advertising campaign. In 1984, he published and photographed Raquel's best-selling fitness book Total Beauty and Fitness[10] and produced and directed her multi-platinum collection of fitness and yoga videos.[11][12][13][14]

Having met actress Raquel Welch in Paris in 1977, André Weinfeld decided to move to Hollywood to join her. They eventually married in 1980.

Divorced from Raquel Welch in 1990, André Weinfeld is now living in New York with his 26-year-old son Music Producer and Composer Zak Weinfeld from his second marriage to American fashion model and songwriter Jaimie Lilly (from whom he is also divorced), sharing his time between Paris, New York, Los Angeles and London.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to André Weinfeld.

• André Weinfeld at IMDb