Skip to content
Curated category

American male television writers

  • 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 Kinberg has a small cameo in one of his own scripts. In Mr. & Mrs. Smith, he plays the banker who chats with John Smith at a dinner party.
  • Greg EaglesGreg Eagles has spent decades giving voice to characters on opposite ends of the moral spectrum: a hockey-masked warrior in the Metal Gear Solid franchise, a…
  • Paul ZbyszewskiPaul Zbyszewski started his television career writing questions for contestants on the Weakest Link, a game show that thrives on elimination.
  • 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.
  • 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…
  • Stephen ColbertStephen Colbert walked to the podium at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, stood a few yards from President George W.
  • Bryan BurkBryan Burk was born on the 30th of December 1968 into a Jewish family. He grew up hearing stories that shaped his identity and later influenced his creative…
  • 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…
  • Ken KeelerKen Keeler holds a PhD in applied mathematics from Harvard University and has spent much of his career writing jokes for animated robots and cartoon families.
  • David LettermanDavid Michael Letterman was born on the 12th of April 1947, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and over the next six decades he would reshape what American late-night…
  • Conan O'BrienConan Christopher O'Brien was born on the 18th of April 1963, in Brookline, Massachusetts, into a family defined by high achievers.
  • 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.
  • J. J. AbramsJ. J. Abrams wrote his first film score at age 16 for a low-budget horror movie called Nightbeast. That was 1982, and it was not the work of a film student…
  • 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…
  • 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…
  • John SingletonJohn Daniel Singleton walked into the Cannes Film Festival in 1991 as a 23-year-old first-time director, his debut feature Boyz n the Hood already drawing…
  • Jonathan KasdanJonathan Peter Kasdan was born on the 30th of September 1979 in Los Angeles. His father Lawrence Kasdan worked as a writer and director while his mother Meg…
  • Tony GilroyTony Gilroy was born in Manhattan on the 11th of September, 1956, into a household where storytelling was not a hobby but a profession. His father, Frank D.
  • George R. R. MartinGeorge Raymond Richard Martin was born on the 20th of September, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of a longshoreman.
  • Charlie KaufmanCharlie Kaufman spent his first weeks on a professional writing staff too anxious to speak. Hired in the early 1990s to write for the sitcom Get a Life…
  • Donald GloverDonald McKinley Glover Jr. was voted "Most Likely to Write for The Simpsons" in his high school yearbook at Stephenson High School in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
  • Dave FiloniDave Filoni thought he was being pranked. When a job offer arrived from George Lucas himself, Filoni assumed his colleagues at Nickelodeon were pulling a…
  • Lorne MichaelsLorne Michaels once offered The Beatles $3,000 to reunite on live television. He made the offer in front of a studio audience, on a brand-new NBC show…
  • D. B. WeissD. B. Weiss was born on the 23rd of April, 1971, in Chicago, Illinois, and the career he eventually built would become one of the most celebrated and then…
  • David BenioffDavid Benioff was born David Friedman on the 25th of September, 1970, the youngest of three children in a Jewish family in New York City.
  • Joss WhedonJoss Whedon grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in a household where Shakespeare was vacation reading and silence was a punishment for children who…
  • David X. CohenDavid Samuel Cohen was born on the 13th of July 1966 in New York City. Both of his parents were biologists, and he grew up planning to be a scientist himself.
  • Carl MacekCarl Frank Macek was an American screenwriter and producer. His adaptations of Japanese anime, made across the 1980s and 1990s, are credited with building…
  • The Duffer BrothersMatt Duffer and Ross Duffer, identical twins credited together as the Duffer Brothers, were born on the 15th of February 1984.
  • James MangoldJames Mangold grew up in Washingtonville, New York, a small Hudson Valley town, but his ambitions pointed far beyond it.
  • Jonathan TropperJonathan Tropper grew up in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, New York City, in a liberal observant Jewish household, attending a co-ed Modern Orthodox…
  • Jon FavreauJon Favreau grew up in Flushing, Queens, the only child of a schoolteacher mother who died of leukemia when he was just twelve years old.
  • Beau WillimonBeau Willimon was born on the 26th of October 1977, and by his own account, he was the worst student in his playwriting cohort at Columbia.
  • James KahnJames Kahn was born on the 30th of December, 1947, in Chicago, and by the time most people encounter his name, they are holding a paperback copy of Return of…