The Penn Stater Magazine

Star Trek Director has Penn State Blood

May 29, 2009 at 8:07 am Tina Hay Leave a comment

A 1962 grad sent us a note the other day via the Alumni Association’s “Ask Alumni” page to call our attention to something I didn’t know: The director of the current blockbuster Star Trek movie is the son of two Penn Staters.

J.J. Abrams also directed the film Mission: Impossible III and was co-creator of the TV series Lost, for which he won a bunch of Emmy Awards. He’s part of a movie-and-TV family: His dad, Gerald Abrams ’61, is a Penn State Alumni Fellow and Distinguished Alumnus who has owned Cypress Point Productions for more than 30 years. Gerry has been executive producer of a number of TV programs and garnered a handful of Emmy nominations over the years. He’s also very active in the College of Communications. And J.J.’s mom, Carol Abrams ’63 (she was Carol Kelvin as an undergrad), is an independent producer who won a Peabody Award in 1994 for The Ernest Green Story, a film she produced for the Disney Channel.

Tina Hay, editor

Entry filed under: Alumni Association, College of Communications, Famous Penn Staters. Tags: Carol Abrams, Carol Kelvin, Cypress Point Productions, Disney Channel, Gerald Abrams, J.J. Abrams, Mission Impossible III, Peabody Awards, Star Trek, The Ernest Green Story.