Back in the good ol' days, he was entertaining fellow classmates and teachers with clever jokes and whimsical story ideas. Now, as a speaker at the school, he's stirring up even more excitement with the feature directorial debut of his brainchild, Levity, which is an independent drama featuring big-name stars that's set to hit theaters on April 11.

Whoever said that big screen celebrities tend to get lost in the Hollywood Hills of fame and fortune must not have heard about Soloman. In fact, the humble 41-year-old director, writer and producer considers himself far from being a celebrity, despite his running successes as the co-writer of many well-known movies, such as Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and the sequel, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, Men in Black and Leaving Normal.

Soloman lives in a modest two-story home in Santa Monica with his wife, Cynthia, and their two children, Evan and Olivia, and drives a Volkswagen Passat. He graduated from UCLA in 1982 as an economics major and made a living selling jokes to reputable comedians like Jimmie Walker and Garry Shandling during his sophomore year in college. He says he landed a job when he overheard someone mentioning that Shandling was looking for a joke writer and started selling his jokes at an average of $25 per piece.

He then took a shot at stand-up comedy but later resorted to writing plays in the theater department, writing seven plays of different genres, from comedy to drama. He received his first major break during his senior year, when Shandling introduced the producer of Laverne and Shirley to Ed. After watching one of Soloman's plays, the producer immediately offered him a position as a staff writer for the show.

"I couldn't believe it," says Soloman. "I actually had to go out and buy a decent pair of pants and a shirt with buttons."

Soloman says that it was a scary feeling at first because he was working with such talented people at such a young age.

"It was hard to be funny on the spot," he says. But Soloman's career as a screenwriter soared after that.

Photograph by George Sakkestad Arrgggg! With clenched teeth, Ed Soloman demonstrates the frustrations of having writer's block.

Now that Soloman is climbing up the ladder as a respected artist and director, he's finding himself inundated with a million things to do, people to meet and places to go. To promote his first directed film, he's scheduled to visit destinations such as San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Chicago. But one stop Soloman definitely had to make was his hometown in Saratoga, where he shared some of his fondest adolescent memories with a number of his closest friends he met in school. He revisited his old high school and shared his journey of becoming a screenwriter and director with attentive and enthusiastic students, who asked questions about his trials and tribulations as a writer and overcoming writer's block. After the hour-long presentation, he took a trip down memory lane as he toured the school. He visited the downtown area along Big Basin Way and said he remembers "causing mischief, like what a typical 12-year-old would do."

"One of my favorite places to hang out as a kid was Big Basin Way," Soloman recalls. "My friends and I would ride our bikes and get Slurpees at Shaw's. Then we'd go to Westgate and drink more Slurpees. It was my training for drinking iced decaffeinated mocha frappuccinos with no whipped cream."

Soloman also recalls playing Frisbee on the lawn at West Valley College until sunset.

"Those were the greatest times of my life," he says. "I loved those feelings of endless afternoons."

But Soloman's afternoons was soon filled with things to do during high school. He became involved with sports, high school leadership activities and theater productions. In his junior year, he served as the class president. He was a busy student but always found time to feed his passion for writing.

Tibor Szalay met Soloman during his first year as a librarian at Saratoga High School. Soloman would come to the library and sit in a particular place to work on his stories.

"He was a fixture in the library," says Szalay

Szalay says Soloman is still "sharp in his memory." He remembers having lengthy discussions with the avid writer about essays he would write for class. He says he distinctly remembers one in particular in which Soloman eloquently expressed his feelings about the beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge.

"Soloman was always very focused," he recalls. "He was also very inquisitive and full of life. I suspect that he'll go far. It was obvious he had a unique talent for writing."

As a child, Soloman says, he spent a lot of time writing stories and "unfunny comic books filled with youthful enthusiasm."

"I wrote all the time when I was a kid. I remember jumping up from the dinner table and running to my room to type up a story I just thought of and running back to the table to read it to my family."

Soloman's younger brother, Eric, says he recalls such incidences and was always entertained by the creations and humor.

"It was a lot of fun growing up with him," says Eric, who is five years younger than Ed. "We always made amateurish home movies and pretended to be certain characters."

Eric recalls making a movie in which Ed was acting as a "goofy private eye detective" named Marvin, looking for the person who stole a can of beans.

But Ed's humor and ingenuity are only two of the many qualities that Eric and his other brother, Joel, admire about their big brother.

"He's one of my closest friends," says Joel, who is two years younger than Ed. "He's someone I can trust and talk to about anything."

Soloman's sensitivity and genuine quality is perhaps one of the reasons why his works are so successful and well-liked by many. He says his passion for writing stems from the insecurities he felt while growing up.

"I always took things too seriously," says Soloman. "I was struggling with understanding how I fit into the world and figured that if I could make people laugh, it would be a tangible record of my existence."

He says that he was always trying to find ways to express himself and that the idea of "taking something amorphous like fear or anxiety and turning it into something understandable like a story" always attracted him.

According to his friends and high school teachers at Saratoga High, Solomon was a unique character who always knew what to say and when to say it.

"Ed was an extroverted guy who was smarter than everyone else," says Lance Guest, who is now a professional actor and has been featured in various movies such as Halloween II and Jaws. "He always had something creative to say and was constantly coming up with stories and jokes."

Guest and Soloman met when they joined a YMCA football team called the Rams when they were 8 years old. According to Lance, the two teammates bonded because of their admiration for Mel Brooks. Their relationship flourished throughout high school, where they shared English, history and choir classes.

Guest says one of his favorite memories of Ed in high school was his creation of the Rototilling Club. According to Guest, who was a "member," the club was a group of students who did nothing but have half a yearbook page devoted to their picture. Guest says he recalls Soloman making the morning announcement of mandatory meetings for Rototiller members.

"It was pretty much 10 minutes of comedy in the morning," says Brian Prestwich, who has been friends with Soloman since they were 13 years old.

"It's a blessing to be Ed's friend," says Prestwich, who is now a doctor in Southern California. "He was my best advocate when I tried to get on the football team. He knew everybody at school, and everybody knew him."

Photograph by George Sakkestad Saratoga High School Assistant Principal Karen Hyde takes Ed Soloman on a tour of the school.

Together, the three musketeers—along with other friends—started getting involved with school plays and musical productions.

Paul Page, who was Soloman's choir teacher in 1974, says he remembers Soloman being an A student.

"He had a quick, witty sense of humor," says Page. "You would have to pay close attention to understand his jokes."

In the fall of 1975, Page spearheaded the school's production of Guys and Dolls, in which Soloman played one of the gamblers. At that time, Page says, he was looking for someone to assist with the script.

"I instinctively knew Ed would be a good person to write the introductions for each of the opening scenes in the play," he says.

Judith Sutton, an English teacher at Saratoga High, met Soloman through Guest, who was in her drama class in 1976. She says she was able to become better acquainted with Soloman after establishing the Valley Institute of Theater and Arts, which Soloman, Guest, Prestwich and a group of others became involved with.

"I've always enjoyed his humor," says Sutton. "He was always able to see the light of everything."

Soloman's keen perception of life is reflected in Levity, which is a story about redemption and forgiveness. It features acclaimed celebrities Billy Bob Thornton, Morgan Freeman, Holly Hunter and Kirsten Dunst.

Soloman says he first conceived the idea of the project in 1978, after working as a tutor for teenagers in a maximum-security youth penitentiary, where he met a boy who was sent to the state prison and sentenced to life there for killing another person.

Soloman has worked on the script intermittently since 1986. The central question he addresses in the movie is: "Can any number of so-called good acts make up for one very bad act?"

Joel Soloman says that the movie "truly demonstrates the depths of Ed's talents."

Eric adds that he's exceptionally proud of his brother.

"I'm absolutely blown away by what he is able to achieve. He's unique as an individual and as an artist."