He is the son of set decorator Emile Kuri,[1] who won Academy Awards for William Wyler's The Heiress (1949)[2] and Walt Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954).

[4] It is inspired in part by the Police Athletic League,[5] a national volunteer staffed organization of over 80,000 off-duty police officers who mentor over two million teens annually, and further inspired by Kuri's work with the L.A. Sheriff's Department when he produced and directed officer survival training films and recruitment commercials[6] and trained at the Sheriff's Academy qualifying as a marksmen on their pistol range.

He was one of a small number selected for the "Organizational Development" program wherein young executives in training were moved throughout the Disney company to experience all aspects of management.

Working from his Hollywood home in Laurel Canyon Welles shared sketches of his concepts for an upcoming movie he was preparing for PBS titled Heloise.

In February 1990 as CEO of his then company Sheffield Entertainment, Inc., Kuri won the legal case in arbitration to the FCC license for full power television station KCMY, its antenna planned to service the Sacramento area.

Then Kuri created the ABC series Ohara for Warner Bros Television starring Pat Morita (1987)[17] and in 1973 he was Emmy-nominated as art director and set decorator of John Steinbeck's The Red Pony.

[22] At the suggestion of Dr. Andy Walshe, (Ph.D. in Applied Biomechanics—who prepared Felix Baumgartner for his jump from the edge of space as a sport, and has worked with the US Olympic Ski and Snowboard teams developing their athletes) Kuri was one of the initial participants in the Red Bull High Performance “Hacking Creativity” project in 2015.

[28] Kuri was a Senior Fellow with the Culture of Lawfulness Project for the National Strategy Information Center (NSIC), a Washington, DC–based education and research foundation.

The success of the Culture of Lawfulness program is noted by Paula J. Dobriansky, Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs, in her report cited below in "References" footnote 26.

Also resulting from this work Kuri wrote the foreword to the 2013 book "Separation of Powers & The Rule of Law, the Lebanese System" from Dr. Akl M. Kairouz and Dr. Issam Y. Atala, professors at Université La Sagesse, Beirut.

A commercial pilot Kuri has directed aviation sequences for movies and television and, as he did for Ron Howard's Skyward starring Bette Davis[35] and the hit series Airwolf, he flew the camera plane.

The scenes of the small planes in flight are swoopingly beautiful..."[35] Kuri's avocation is jazz guitar with a specific interest in Brazilian rhythms—bossa nova and samba.

He has performed in L.A. jazz clubs as a member of the Stephen Boyd Quartet[37] and as the leader of his sextet, John Kuri's Elixir and Friends.