Frank Cromer was hatched in Wiesbaden, Germany. His Air Force family arrived in
San Antonio, Texas where he burned down the family home at age five playing "campfire"
in a closet with his younger brothers.
Transplanted to Ohio, Cromer made his first movie (a Romeo and Juliet parody) at age 14
for an English class and was hooked when he (a skinny, bespectacled goof) became famous
at his junior high school.
He and the 3 other boys who made the first film also created the first Junior Achievement
film production company in America while in tenth grade. They named it “Titanico” because
the suburb Westerville gang were sure the inner city Columbus kids would sink it. (They did
but not before Cromer produced his next super 8mm classic called Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde and
Herbie.)
After six short years at the Ohio State University, Cromer earned his B.A. in Photography
and Cinema. Inspired by Steve Martin, he took to the comedy stage in 1979 and later worked
as a double act with a deranged pal (who hates being called deranged) as The Kamikazee Brothers.
In 1991 Cromer completed his first unpublished (as yet) comic novel TAKE A BULLET after
spending two years as a private detective in Houston, Texas. He shot the comedy pilot of his
soap opera satire Living for Today at Otterbein College. In 1996 he wrote and directed the comedy short Dead Girls Are Easy (still unreleased).
From 1997-2000, Cromer wrote comedy bits for national radio’s American Comedy Network
and "The Gary Burbank Show" (later producing a documentary about Burbank called INSIDE THE BBC). He also completed the script for PIGS in 1999 and was left at the altar twice: once by a Japanese studio and then in 2005 by a millionaire friend.
By 2006 Cromer wrote a buddy pic for Jonathan Winters and Robin Williams called Saving the Coot. Winters approved the script but Williams was in rehab and by the time he got out, JW backed out because of his frail health. On January 6, 2007 the Ohio Historical Society premiered Cromer's first feature film TV CLOWN: the True Story of Flippo, King of Clowns.
In December 2008 Cromer optioned the book "Fouled Away: the Baseball Tragedy of Hack Wilson" and wrote the screenplay The Slugger. He hopes that PIGS will spur interest in that project.
