American film producer and director who began producing movies with brother Dave Zucker, then went on to his own productions of “Ghost,”1990, “First Knight,” 1995, and “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” 1997. He was co-executive producer of the TV series “Police Squad.”
He grew up in the Milwaukee suburb of Shorewood, where he and brother Dave read “Mad” magazine with their sister Susan. His mother Charlotte was a junior high school teacher and dad Burton a real estate developer. He and Dave enrolled in film courses at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where they produced, among other things, a parody of “Midnight Cowboy” titled “12:05 Cowboy.”
In 1971, he and Dave formed Kentucky Fried Theater with their friend Jim Abrahams, which mixed videotape parodies and live skits. They played in Madison for a year, then went to standing-room-only crowds in Los Angeles for five years. In 1977, they turned their material into the John Landis directed “Kentucky Fried Movie.” Their partnership resulted in some of the daffiest, most commercially successful comedies, such as “Airplane,” 1980 and “The Naked Gun,” 1988. With the exception of 1984’s “Top Secret,” their films were big hits at the box office, but after “Ruthless People,”1986, the brothers dissolved the trio with Abrahams and amicably parted, each going off on his own.
Link to Wikipedia biography