Alec Cuddeback

Alec has been a performer since the second grade, where he played the part of Captain Hook in a musical version of "Peter Pan".

In high school at Canandaigua Academy, Alec was in varsity chorus for two years, with various solo parts, and was chosen as All-County and All-State, as well as leader of the tenor section. He portrayed Lieutenant Shrank in "West Side Story" and Tom Keeney in "Funny Girl" in two summer productions at the old Playhouse Theatre in Canandaigua.

While attending Indiana University, Alec was an engineer for WFIU-FM radio. He won an award for Broadcast Performance, appearing in many radio plays during his time at the university.. He also wrote and broadcast news and radio plays. Alec produced two radio documentaries For WFIU-FM about labor union disputes involving the New York Metropolitan Opera and interviewed Francis Robinson, assistant manager of the Met, Lester Solomon of Musician's Union Local 802, and opera star Cornell MacNeil, among others. He also directed the first late-night news program for WTIU-TV.

Alec was in the chorus for the operas "Andre Chenier" and "Il Trovatore", performed by the Indiana University Opera Theatre, which toured the state, giving performances in five cities. He participated in a summer production of "Camelot", and was a member of the Singing Hoosiers choral group.

Alec graduated from Indiana University with a B.S. and earned an M.S. at Syracuse University, both degrees in broadcasting.

At Syracuse, Alec was a production intern at PBS station WCNY-TV, directed a choral Christmas show at that same station which was re-broadcast by five regional PBS stations, was a part-time film editor at WSYR-TV, and performed solo and ensemble pieces from operas "La Boheme" and "Carmen" through the Syracuse University School Of Music. He also produced and co-hosted a weekly opera radio program on station WAER during one summer.

Alec served as writer-producer-director-cameraman for General Electric Cablevision in Biloxi, Mississippi, which did 40 hours of local origination programming per week, including a nightly news program. He originated, produced, and directed a series entitled "Encore!", which featured scenes from local theater productions.

He returned to upstate New York and worked as an on-air performer, writer, producer, and director at WXXI-TV in Rochester.

After moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in screenwriting, he wrote for the Jerry Lewis Telethon, and "Grizzly Adams" TV series. Did some ghost writing and had his screenplay, "The Klingsor Initiates", optioned twice.

For several years, Alec worked on a project for a co-producer of "The Neverending Story", doing about ten screenplay adaptations of the novel "The Satanic Mill" by Otfried Preussler.
He also performed opera arias and popular songs in various local showcases, including the famous La Scala restaurant.

At the same time, Alec co-wrote the libretto for an original opera, "Cold Genius", based on the last days of the pop-cult figure Klaus Nomi, composed by Eberhard Schoener, which was recorded on Ariola Records, featuring operatic bass Kurt Moll. He also worked on parts of the libretto for another Schoener opera, "Palazzo dell' Amore", which starred tenor Andrea Bocelli and was recorded along with "Cold Genius", the two works appearing as the cd "Short Operas".

He began to divide his time between Los Angeles and the Finger Lakes area. He started writing rock songs and ultimately released a cd, "Glass onions - Original Songs, 60s Style", where he performed vocals for ten of his original tunes.

Following the release of the cd, he organized "Glass Onions", a four-piece rock band, which did his originals and cover tunes, concentrating on the British Invasion era of the 1960s, with Alec doing vocals and playing rhythm guitar as well as keyboards. The band performed in various versions for 16 years, Alec eventually writing 22 original tunes. When the group was re-organized into a duo, consisting of Alec and lead guitarist Bob Fischetto, it took the name "Vintage". His bands performed at many local venues, including "The Bayside Pub", "Smokin' Joe's", "The Flipside" and "California Brew Haus" in Rochester, along with the Naples Grape Festival, Canandaigua's Harvestfest, Livonia's Vitale Park Summer Festival, Hilton's Applefest, and the Naples Spring Artisan Showcase.

Along with his rock gigs, Alec sang operatic tenor arias for seven years, at the annual “Spaghetti Opera”, a major fundraiser to benefit the Ontario County Arts Council in Canandaigua, New York – specializing in the works of Italian opera composers such as Verdi and Puccini.

A lot of his non-industry jobs were in market research and social science research, having worked for the think tank RAND Corporation and the NIELSEN Company (home of the Nielsen TV ratings).

In between all of this, he wrote a total of 17 feature screenplays, five being co-written, plus one screenplay ghostwritten, and numerous treatments and story pitches.

During his time with his rock bands, Alec hadn't looked at any of his scripts for a while. When he retired from the music scene, he decided to concentrate on eight or nine of his screenplays, make some improvements and re-submit them, hoping for better luck.

"I think most of my stuff is pretty good and definitely commercial. What has been lacking is a stroke of good luck. Through the years, I had four agents - none of them were any good, however."

I think most of my stuff is pretty good and definitely commercial. What has been lacking is a stroke of good luck. Through the years, I had four agents - none of them were able to get my work to the right people.

I don’t do boring character studies or tedious “message” films. I write crowd-pleasing popcorn munchers: action, comedy, and horror.