Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Joel and Ethan Coen grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, in a Jewish household. Their father, Edward, was an economist at the University of Minnesota, and their mother, Rena, an art historian at St. Cloud State University. When they were children, Joel saved money from mowing lawns to buy a Vivitar Super 8 camera. Together, the brothers remade movies they saw on television with a neighborhood kid, Mark Zimering ("Zeimers"), as the star. Their first attempt was a romp titled, Henry Kissinger, Man on the Go. Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey (1966) became their Zeimers in Zambia, which also featured Ethan as a native with a spear. The brothers graduated from St. Louis Park High School in 1973 and 1976. They both also graduated from Bard College at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Joel then spent four years in the undergraduate film program at New York University where he made a 30-minute thesis film called Soundings. The film depicted a woman engaged in sex with her deaf boyfriend while verbally fantasizing about having sex with her boyfriend's best friend, who is listening in the next room. Ethan went on to Princeton University and earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy in 1979. His senior thesis was a 41-page essay, "Two Views of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy". In the late 1970s, both brothers lived in the Weinstein dormitory at 5-11 University Place, an NYU dorm noted for housing such creatives as Ralph Bakshi, Rick Rubin, actor/writer Jonathan Schmock, and film makers Chris Columbus and Dan Goldman. Joel has been married to actress Frances McDormand since 1984. They adopted a son from Paraguay, named Pedro McDormand Coen (Frances and all her siblings were adopted). McDormand has acted in six of the Coen Brothers' films, including a minor appearance in Miller's Crossing, a supporting role in Raising Arizona, lead roles in Blood Simple and The Man Who Wasn't There, her Academy Award winning role in Fargo, and her latest starring role in Burn After Reading. She also did a voice-over in Barton Fink. Ethan is married to film editor Tricia Cooke. Both couples live in New York City.