Search Results - Avnet, Jon

Jon Avnet

__NOTOC__ Jonathan Michael Avnet (born November 17, 1949) is an American director, writer, and producer.

Avnet was born in Brooklyn, the son of Joan Bertha (née Grossman) and Lester Francis Avnet, a corporate executive with Avnet (a global distributor of IT & electronics) founded by his paternal grandfather, Charles Avnet. He has two siblings, Carole Avnet Rocherolle and Rosalind Avnet Lazarus. He attended Great Neck North High School in Great Neck, New York. He entered the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, and he earned a B.A. degree in film and theater arts from Sarah Lawrence College in 1971. He is Jewish.

Avnet addressed political issues with his fourth film ''Red Corner'' in 1997, a movie about the Chinese legal system, starring Richard Gere and Bai Ling. Because of Gere's presence and support for Tibet and the Dalai Lama, they could not film in China, and instead filmed in Southern California. Avnet, however, did film a few scenes in Beijing and included some footage of actual Chinese executions. Provided by Wikipedia