Kaplow graduated in 1972 from Westfield High School in Westfield, where he wrote his first satirical sketches as a student. He graduated from Rutgers University, the state university of New Jersey. Kaplow used to teach English at Summit High School in Summit, New Jersey. During his tenure at Summit High School and on his eponymous website, Kaplow talked about his fascination with a home in his hometown of Westfield. He boasted on numerous occasions that he had penned several letters to the home declaring his love for and his desire to live inside the home. In June 2014, Derek and Maria Broaddus purchased 657 Boulevard in Westfield and they began receiving threatening letters. The author, calling himself “The Watcher,” wrote that he had been watching the home for a long time and requested the new owners bring him “young blood.” Derek Broaddus hired a private investigator/ex-FBI profiler to help identify The Watcher and it was determined that The Watcher was most likely someone who lived close to 657 Boulevard and was someone who was aged anywhere from 50 to 60 years old. Kaplow's brother, Richard, an attorney who lives on Boulevard in Westfield, represented the family who was selling the infamous home. Due to Kaplow's incessant bragging about his fascination of the home, his macabre sense of humor, and the extreme unlikelihood of having two Westfield homes receive such correspondence, it is widely speculated in Summit and Westfield that Robert Kaplow is “The Watcher.” Kaplow retired after the 2013-14 academic year and the Broaddus family received their first letter in June 2014.
''Me and Orson Welles''
Kaplow conceived the idea for the book while being a student at Rutgers University. He saw a photo in the periodical Theatre Arts Monthly from 1937 with Orson Welles with a young man. Kaplow wondered what the young man might have been thinking. He wrote the story, but it took about nine years to find a publisher. It was made into a film by director Richard Linklater which was released in 2009. The Guardian critic Sophie Martelli described the film as a "schmaltzy yet charming coming-of-age story." Me and Orson Welles was a The New York Times bestseller and the film in 2008 starred Zac Efron and Claire Danes. The movie was filmed in the Gaiety Theatre on the Isle of Man. Kaplow's most recent novel is a satire of writers, critics, and publishers. For National Public Radio's Morning Edition, Mr. Kaplow created "Moe Moskowitz and the Punsters," a series of musical and satirical pop-culture parodies. He is currently completing Nobody's Heart: A Novel About Teachers He has been a resident of Metuchen, New Jersey.
