Andy Tennant

Andy Tennant directed a series of high-profile romantic comedies in the 1990s and 2000s, starring some of the most prominent leading ladies of his day: Salma Hayek in "Fools Rush In" (1997), Drew Barrymore in "Ever After" (1998), and Reese Witherspoon in "Sweet Home Alabama" (2002). In his days as an aspiring actor, the Chicago native landed a place in the choruses of 1970s musicals "Grease " and "Grease 2," but turned his attention first to writing and then directing. Tennant helmed episodes of the television spinoff of John Hughes's "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" as well as the first four episodes of the Bueller-like "Parker Lewis Can't Lose." However, it was the made-for-TV "The Amy Fisher Story," with Barrymore in the title role as the real-life teen shooter, that put Tennant on the map and eventually got him his first feature assignment as a director. That movie, "It Takes Two," may have been something less than a smash hit, but it would serve as the romantic-comedy template for the bulk of his subsequent films. Not only did Tennant score box office success with actresses, but his collaboration with Will Smith in "Hitch," about a "date doctor" who struggles with his own love life, had the highest-grossing opening weekend of any romantic comedy ever.