Curated category
American male screenwriters
- Alfred HitchcockAlfred Hitchcock was born on the 13th of August 1899 above a greengrocer's shop at 517 High Road in Leytonstone, Essex. By the time he died in 1980, his…
- Stephen KingStephen King was walking on the shoulder of Maine State Route 5 on the 19th of June 1999 when a minivan struck him and sent him into a depression in the…
- Simon KinbergSimon David Kinberg arrived in Hammersmith, London, on the 2nd of August 1973. His parents were American citizens who moved him to Los Angeles when he was…
- Derek ConnollyDerek Connolly was born around 1976 in the United States. He grew up in Miami, Florida, where he attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School.
- Martin ScorseseMartin Scorsese had asthma as a boy and could not play sports or join in games with the other children. So his parents and his older brother took him to the…
- Woody AllenWoody Allen has made 50 feature films. That single fact sits at the center of a career so long and so productive it resists easy summary.
- Ernest HemingwayErnest Hemingway was born on the 21st of July 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, into a family where his mother kept his hair long and dressed him in frilly…
- Matthew Robinson (writer)Matthew Robinson was born on the 26th of May 1978. He first gained attention as a member of The Trilambs, a satirical hip-hop group.
- Orson WellesOrson Welles was born on the 6th of May 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and died on the 10th of October 1985. In between those dates, he directed what is…
- Steven SpielbergSteven Spielberg was born on the 18th of December 1946, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and by the time he was twelve years old, he had already staged and filmed a…
- Tennessee WilliamsTennessee Williams wrote in his will that he wanted to be sewn into a canvas sack and dropped into the sea at the exact spot where his idol, the poet Hart…
- Quentin TarantinoQuentin Tarantino was born on the 27th of March 1963, in Knoxville, Tennessee, to a mother who let him watch R-rated films as a child and a father he never…
- David LynchDavid Lynch was born on the 20th of January 1946 at St. Patrick's Hospital in Missoula, Montana, the son of a USDA research scientist and an English-language…
- Stanley KubrickStanley Kubrick was born on the 26th of July 1928 in the Lying-In Hospital in Manhattan, and he died on the 7th of March 1999, just a few days after hosting…
- Wes AndersonWes Anderson grew up in Houston, Texas, making silent films on his father's Super 8 camera, casting his brothers and friends as the talent.
- George LucasGeorge Lucas was nearly killed before he ever made a film. On the 12th of June 1962, a few days before his high school graduation in Modesto, California…
- Christopher NolanChristopher Nolan does not own a smartphone, and he has no email address. He hand-delivers his scripts to the actors he wants, and his wife handles the rest…
- William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner spent most of his writing life within a few square miles of Lafayette County, Mississippi, yet the fictional world he built from that patch…
- Kevin SmithKevin Patrick Smith was born on the 2nd of August 1970, in Red Bank, New Jersey. He grew up in the nearby clamming town of Highlands as the son of Grace and…
- Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the firebombing of Dresden by hiding in a meat locker three stories underground, surrounded by hanging cadavers.
- Andy WarholAndy Warhol died at 6:31 in the morning on the 22nd of February 1987, in a private room at New York Hospital, from a sudden cardiac arrhythmia following what…
- Stephen ColbertStephen Colbert walked to the podium at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, stood a few yards from President George W.
- Raymond ChandlerRaymond Thornton Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 and died in 1959, having spent much of the intervening years doing almost everything except what he…
- Roger EbertRoger Ebert typed his last blog post two days before he died on the 4th of April 2013, signing off with words that could have come from any of his 46 years…
- Elia KazanElia Kazan was born Elias Kazantzoglou in Constantinople on the 7th of September, 1909, to Cappadocian Greek parents whose surname derived from the Turkish…
- Tom HanksTom Hanks lost 35 pounds for a single role. He thinned his hair, learned to walk differently, and prepared to play a dying man on screen.
- Bruce LeeBruce Lee was born in San Francisco on the 27th of November, 1940, during the hour of the Dragon, in the year of the Dragon.
- Irving ThalbergIrving Thalberg was twenty years old when Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Pictures, told him to take charge of the entire Los Angeles studio.
- William WylerWilliam Wyler walked away from the set of Ben-Hur in 1959 having just overseen a chariot race that took six months to film.
- Ralph BakshiRalph Bakshi was born on the 29th of October 1938 in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, into a Krymchak Jewish family, and by the time he was a teenager in Brooklyn…
- Terrence MalickTerrence Malick graduated from Harvard College summa cum laude in 1965, won a Rhodes Scholarship to study philosophy at Oxford, then walked away from the…
- Will SmithWill Smith was born on the 25th of September 1968 in Philadelphia, and before he turned thirty, he had already won Grammy Awards as a rapper, anchored a hit…
- Francis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford Coppola illegally hired a grave robber to supply real human corpses as props, and oversaw the ritualistic killing of a water buffalo.
- Arthur MillerArthur Miller died on the evening of the 10th of February 2005 - the fifty-sixth anniversary of the Broadway debut of Death of a Salesman.
- Buster KeatonBuster Keaton never smiled on screen. Not when a two-ton building facade toppled directly onto him, leaving only the gap of an open window between his body…
- Ken BurnsKen Burns sat at a family dinner table in Newark, Delaware, in the summer of 1962. He was almost nine years old. The day was hot and sweltering, and when he…
- Robert RodriguezRobert Rodriguez made his first feature film for $7,000. That budget covered the entire production of El Mariachi, an action film shot in Spanish in 1992.
- Bradley CooperBradley Charles Cooper was born on the 5th of January 1975, in Abington Township, Pennsylvania, a child who wanted to move to Japan and become a ninja.
- Walt DisneyWalt Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards won by an individual, with 22 wins from 59 nominations. Yet the man behind that record was, in private…
- John LasseterJohn Lasseter was fired from the Walt Disney Company for believing too hard in the future. The year was 1984, the project was a test film blending…
- Stephen Glover (screenwriter)Stephen Antuan Glover entered the television industry in 2016 without a single prior professional credit. His older brother Donald hired him to co-write for…
- Vin DieselMark Sinclair Vincent arrived in New York City during the late 1960s, born on the 18th of July 1967. He grew up in Alameda County before moving to Manhattan…
- Ron HowardRon Howard was five years old when he stood on a set holding a toy turtle, pretending it was dead. He had to cry. The director helping him through the scene…
- Pat ProftPat Proft's name does not appear in the title of a single one of Hollywood's most beloved comedy franchises, yet his fingerprints are on nearly all of them.
- Rian JohnsonRian Craig Johnson was born on the 17th of December 1973, in Silver Spring, Maryland, and grew up to make one of the most divisive films in modern…
- J. J. AbramsOn a day in 1982, Jeffrey Jacob Abrams composed the music for a horror movie called Nightbeast. He was only sixteen years old when he wrote that score.
- Russo brothersThe Russo brothers directed Avengers: Endgame on a budget paid in part by student loans and credit cards. That credit card film came first.
- Damon LindelofDamon Lindelof has spent his career building television that refuses to let its audience go quietly. Born on the 24th of April, 1973, in Englewood, New…
- Dean DevlinDean Devlin grew up with Hollywood in his blood and an unusual family story behind him. His father, Don Devlin, was an actor turned writer-producer who…
- J. D. DillardJ. D. Dillard was born on the 26th of December 1987 into a family defined by service and flight. His father Bruce worked as a Naval flight officer who became…