Steve Jankowski was born and raised in The Bronx, New York, attending the same high school as actress Anne Bancroft and infamous mass murderer Son of Sam. After high school, Steve worked as a ticket taker and usher in a local movie theater, before securing a job as a painter at the renowned Beacon Theatre during its renovation. This led to a fascination with stagecraft, and Steve began working on rock concerts, eventually becoming an assistant stage manager, stagehand, and backstage security person at various New York City music venues, including the Beacon, Palladium, and Central Park Summer Concert Series.
Steve also worked as a freelancer for prominent concert promoter Ron Delsener, delivering music instruments to major recording studios and clubs, and performing roadie duties at notable venues like CBGBs, Max's Kansas City, and the Roxy. As a roadie, road manager, and lighting designer, Steve traveled extensively throughout the United States and made two tours of Japan with various artists, including Rupert Holmes, Marshall Crenshaw, and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
In his late twenties, Steve reevaluated his lifestyle, recognizing the risks associated with his profession, and decided to pursue a more stable career. He enrolled at Hunter College in New York City, studying film production, and was introduced to the Sundance Institute, where he worked as a crew member and later production manager for the June Filmmakers' Lab. Steve met his screenwriting mentor, Frank Daniel, and eventually moved to Los Angeles to attend graduate school at the University of Southern California (USC),where Daniel served as his mentor and the dean of the cinema school.
At Sundance, Steve met his filmmaking partner, co-writer, and director, John Shepphird, who has since become an award-winning mystery author. Steve has written or co-written over thirty screenplays, nine of which were produced as low-budget feature and TV films. He acted as producer on four of these films and second unit director on another four. Steve also worked as a production sound mixer for TV and film, and was co-nominated for a British Academy Award for a television documentary on Andre Previn.
At the age of 40, Steve rekindled his passion for sailing, joining a sailing club in Marina del Rey and, two years later, taking a sabbatical to sail to Tahiti via the Marquesas Islands on a 42-foot sailboat. Steve continues to write, having recently completed his first foray into fiction prose, "Below The Line," a pulp/noir murder mystery that combines his experiences in the film and music industries with his love of sailing.
