Edward Bradley Saxon (born November 17, 1956) is an Academy Award-winning American film producer.
Saxon was raised in St. Louis, Missouri, and educated at Kirkwood High School from 1972 to 1976, and McGill University from 1976 to 1980. He then studied at The Peter Stark Producing Program at the USC School of Cinema-Television. While at McGill, he founded the Tuesday Night Cafe Theatre with Veronica Brady and Peter Grossman, and the company is still running today. Saxon acted in many plays at the Players' Theatre, McGill's famous Red and White Review. He also founded a radio comedy troupe called The Circle Jerks.
Saxon is arguably best known for the film The Silence of the Lambs, which is, to date, the third and last film to sweep the five main categories of Academy Award for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture. (The others are It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Formerly Jonathan Demme's producing partner, his films include Beloved, Ulee's Gold, That Thing You Do, The Truth About Charlie, Married to the Mob, Miami Blues, and Philadelphia.
After parting ways with Demme, Saxon produced Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze's Adaptation.. He produced Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation in 2006. His most recent project is in production. The untitled picture is a Focus Features and Big Beach comedy directed by Sam Mendes and written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida.
Originally an actor, Saxon was one of VH1's first VJ's in New York City. He has made several cameos in the films he has produced, most notably as a head in a jar in Silence of the Lambs.
Saxon is married and has two young daughters. In his spare time, he enjoys visiting the timberland of his youth, sometimes howling at the moon and often dog paddling down the Mississippi River.
