John Whitesell

After beginning his directorial career in daytime TV and winning an Emmy for the soap "Guiding Light" in 1985, John Whitesell worked primarily in comedy. Whitesell directed multiple episodes of the sitcom "Coach" during its first and second seasons, his first significant foray into humorous material, and followed it with a busy-two year tenure on the family comedy "Roseanne," beginning in 1990. After a brief fling with the procedural drama "Law & Order" in the same year, and another stint directing the short-lived comedy "Rachel Gunn, R.N.," Whitesell set to work on his first feature film. "Calendar Girl," released in 1993, starred Jason Priestley and Jerry O'Connell as young men on a quest for Marilyn Monroe. After working on the sitcom "Cosby," Bill Cosby's unsuccessful follow-up to "The Cosby Show," Whitesell directed "Malibu's Most Wanted"; the 2003 comedy brought Whitesell his biggest box office hit. The visibility of this film led him to take over directing the sequels of Martin Lawrence's "Big Momma's House" movies.