Film & TV / Comedy / Literature
Paul Feig
born 1962 · director, writer, producer, actor
Bridesmaids director and Freaks and Geeks creator who grew up in Mount Clemens and based his cult series on his years at Chippewa Valley High School.
- Born
Royal Oak, Michigan
age 64- Birth name
- Paul Samuel Feig
- Detroit years
- 1962–early 1980s
- Field
- Film & TV, Comedy, Literature
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Paul Feig was born in Royal Oak in 1962 and grew up in Mount Clemens in Macomb County, the son of a telephone operator and Sanford Feig, who ran a store on Gratiot Avenue. He was raised in a Christian Science household and attended Chippewa Valley High School in Clinton Township, an experience of awkwardness, band practice and cafeteria politics that he would mine for the rest of his career. After a year at Wayne State University he moved to Los Angeles, transferred to the University of Southern California and worked as a Universal Studios tour guide and stand-up comic. With Judd Apatow he created Freaks and Geeks (1999–2000), a one-season series set in a fictional Michigan suburb in 1980 that became a cult classic and earned him two Emmy nominations. As a director he later made Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy and Ghostbusters (2016), and he retold his Michigan adolescence in the memoir Kick Me.
Highlights
- Created Freaks and Geeks (1999–2000), inspired by Chippewa Valley High School
- Directed Bridesmaids (2011), Spy (2015) and A Simple Favor (2018)
- Emmy nominations for Freaks and Geeks and The Office
- Memoir Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence about his Michigan youth
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · late 1970s
Chippewa Valley High School
Feig's high school, whose social world inspired Freaks and Geeks.
Studied here · early 1980s
Wayne State University
Feig spent a year here before transferring to USC.