James L. Brooks

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James Lawrence Brooks (born May 9, 1940) is an American director, producer and screenwriter.

While growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing.

After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the CBS News broadcasts.

He moved to Los Angeles in 1965 to work on David L. Wolper's documentaries.

After being laid off he met producer Allan Burns who secured him a job as a writer on the series My Mother the Car. Brooks wrote for several shows before being hired as a story editor on My Friend Tony and later created the series Room 222.

Grant Tinker hired Brooks and Burns at MTM Productions to create The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970.

The show, one of the first to feature an independent working woman as its lead character, was critically acclaimed and won Brooks several Primetime Emmy Awards.

Brooks and Burns then created two successful spin-offs from Mary Tyler Moore: Rhoda (a comedy) and Lou Grant (a drama).

Brooks left MTM Productions in 1978 to co-create the sitcom Taxi which, despite winning multiple Emmys, suffered from low ratings and was canceled twice. Brooks moved into feature film work when he wrote and co-produced the 1979 film Starting Over.

His next project was the critically acclaimed film Terms of Endearment, which he produced, directed and wrote, winning an Academy Award for all three roles.

Basing his next film, Broadcast News, on his journalistic experiences, the film earned him a further two Academy Award nominations.

Although his 1994 work I'll Do Anything was hampered by negative press attention due to the cutting of all of its recorded musical numbers, As Good as It Gets (co-written with Mark Andrus) earned further praise.

It was seven years until his next film, 2004's Spanglish.

His sixth film, How Do You Know, was released in 2010.

Brooks also produced and mentored Cameron Crowe on Say Anything... (1989) and Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson on Bottle Rocket (1996). In 1984, Brooks founded the television and film company, Gracie Films.

Although he did not intend to do so, Brooks returned to television in 1987 as the producer of The Tracey Ullman Show.

He hired cartoonist Matt Groening to create a series of shorts for the show, which eventually led to The Simpsons in 1989.

The Simpsons won numerous awards and is still running.

Brooks also co-produced and co-wrote the 2007 film adaptation of the show, The Simpsons Movie.

In total, Brooks has received 53 Emmy nominations, winning 21 of them.

Early life

James Lawrence Brooks was born on May 9, 1940, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, and raised in North Bergen, New Jersey. His parents, Dorothy Helen (née Sheinheit) and Edward M. Brooks, were both salespeople (his mother sold children's clothes; his father furniture). The Brooks family was Jewish; Edward Brooks changed his surname from Bernstein and claimed to be Irish. Brooks's father abandoned his mother when he found out she was pregnant with him, and lost contact with his son when Brooks was twelve. During the pregnancy, Brooks' father sent his wife a postcard stating that "If it's a boy, name him Jim." His mother died when he was 22. He has described his early life as "tough" with a "broken home, [and him being] poor and sort of lonely, that sort of stuff", later adding: "My father was sort of in-and-out and my mother worked long hours, so there was no choice but for me to be alone in the apartment a lot." He has an older sister, Diane, who helped look after him as a child and to whom he dedicated As Good as It Gets.

Brooks spent much of his childhood "surviving" and reading numerous comedic and scripted works, as well as writing; he sent comedic short stories out to publishers, and occasionally got positive responses, although none were published, and he did not believe he could make a career as a writer. Brooks attended Weehawken High School, but was not a high achiever. He was on his high school newspaper team and frequently secured interviews with celebrities, including Louis Armstrong. He lists some of his influences as Sid Caesar, Jack Benny, Lenny Bruce, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, as well as writers Paddy Chayefsky and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Personal life

Brooks has been married twice. His first wife was Marianne Catherine Morrissey; they have one daughter, Amy Lorraine Brooks. They divorced in 1972. In 1978 he married Holly Beth Holmberg; they had three children together: daughter Chloe and sons Cooper and Joseph. They divorced in 1999.

He is also a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. Brooks has donated over $175,000 to Democratic Party candidates. In January 2017, Brooks stated in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that his career was now just focused staying with The Simpsons until the show ends and continuing to run into Steven Spielberg "in the market."

Brooks is an avid fan of the Los Angeles Clippers.

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Career

Brooks' career was described as "a non-stop crescendo" by the Chicago Sun-Times in 1987. Despite dropping out of a New York University public relations degree, Brooks' sister did a job as a host at CBS in New York City, a job that typically requires a college degree because she was friends with a secretary. He worked for two and a half years. He took over as a copywriter for CBS News for two weeks and was given the job on a permanent basis after the original employee was unable to return. Brooks went on to become a writer for the news broadcasts, founding the Writers Guild of America, and reporting on topics such as President Kennedy's assassination. He went to Los Angeles in 1965 to write for documentaries being produced by David L. Wolper, something he "hasn't] quite understood as his position at CBS was stable and well-paying. He worked as an associate producer on a number of projects, including Men in Crisis, but after six months, he was laid off as the company continued to cut back on expenses. Brooks has occasionally worked with Wolper's firm, including on a National Geographic insect special.

He attended producer Allan Burns at a party, but he refused to find another job at a news agency. Burns earned him a job on My Mother the Car, where he was hired to rewrite a script after pitching some story ideas. Brooks went on to write episodes of That Girl, The Andy Griffith Show, and My Three Sons before Sheldon Leonard hired him as a story editor on My Friend Tony. He created the ABC program Room 222, which ran until 1974. Room 222 was the second series in American history to have a black lead, in this case, high school teacher Pete Dixon was played by Lloyd Haynes. The network felt the show was emotional and so decided to change the pilot tale so that Dixon helped a white student rather than a black one, but Brooks blocked it. On the show, Brooks worked with Gene Reynolds, who taught him the benefits of extensive and diligent study, which he did at Los Angeles High School for Room 222, and he used the technique on his subsequent projects. After one year of writing on other pilots, Brooks resigned as head writer and brought Burns in to produce the film, he went back to Room 222 as the show's head writer.

Grant Tinker, a CBS program manager, was hired by Brooks and Burns to produce a series for Tinker's wife Mary Tyler Moore, which became The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Brooks opened the show in a newsroom by relying on his own experience in journalism. Initially, the program was unpopular among CBS executives who argued that Tinker fire Brooks and Burns. The performance, on the other hand, was one of network president Fred Silverman's "rural purge"; executive Bob Wood liked the show and converted it to a more convenient timeslot. Brooks and Burns employed all of the show's workers themselves and then ended it of their own volition. The Mary Tyler Moore exhibition became a national and commercial success, being the first show to feature an independent-minded, working woman, not dependent on a male lead. It was described as "one of the most celebrated television programs ever produced" in US television history by Geoff Hammill of the Museum of Broadcast Communications. During its seven-year tenure, critics and many Primetime Emmy Awards have lauded the film, including for three years in a row Outstanding Comedy Series. In 2003, USA Today named it as "one of the finest shows ever to air on television." A Mary Tyler Moore Show episode was chosen as the best TV episode ever by the magazine in 1997, and Entertainment Weekly selected Mary's hat to stick in the opening credits as television's second best moment ever.

With Mary Tyler Moore's career thriving, Brooks produced and wrote the TV film Game on Thursday, the first step in the development of the short-lived series Friends and Lovers in 1974. He and Burns continued to Rhoda, a spin-off of Mary Tyler Moore's, bringing Valerie Harper's character Rhoda Morgenstern's character Rhoda Morgenstern's character to her own film. It was well received, with Brooks receiving multiple Emmy awards over the course of four years. Lou Grant, the duo's second Mary Tyler Moore spin-off, which they created alongside Tinker in 1977, was the pair's next project. However, the film, rather than its source, was a drama starring Edward Asner as Grant. "Explor[d] a complex newspaper publishing business, according to Museum of Broadcast Communications' James Brown, who is focusing on how investigating and reporting such findings affect the layers of personalities populating a turbulent newspaper publishing business." The show was also highly acclaimed, winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series twice and then the Peabody Award.

Brooks and David Davis left MTM Productions in 1978 and founded the John Charles Walters Company, alongside David Davis, Stan Daniels, and Ed Weinberger. They decided to produce Taxi, a show about a New York taxi company, which unlike other MTM Productions, concentrated on the "blue-collar male experience." Brooks and Davis were inspired by Mark Jacobson's book "Night-Shifting for the Hip Fleet," which appeared in New York magazine's September 22, 1975 issue. After three's Company, which earned high ratings, and after two seasons it was moved to Wednesday, the show debuted on ABC in 1978. Its ratings plummeted and in 1982 it was cancelled, but NBC picked it up, but the ratings remained low and it was scrapped after one season. Despite its ratings, it received three consecutive Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy Awards. The Associates (1979-1980) for ABC was Brooks' last TV show before he began making films. Despite positive critical interest, the program was canceled in a hurry.

Brooks' "[bringing] realism to the once-overstated world of television comedies," Alex Simon of Venice Magazine described him as "[bringing] realism to the previously overstated world of television comedy. Brooks' fingerprints can now be seen on shows such as Seinfeld, Friends, Ally McBeal, and a number of other 1980s and 1990s television shows. Some of the first sitcoms with a "focus on character" were produced by Brooks, who were using an ensemble cast in a non-domestic setting.

Brooks began producing feature films in 1978. Starting Over, his first film, was written and co-produced with Alan J. Pakula. He turned a screenplay from Dan Wakefield's novel "a good-humored, heartening update of traditional romantic comedy" unlike the "drab" one.

Brooks' next project began in 1983, when he wrote, produced, and directed Terms of Endearment, based on Larry McMurtry's book of the same name. It cost $8.5 million and took four years to film. Brooks received the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay.

Brooks was concerned about the attention he would receive if he would be "deprived of a low profile," and he was "hard to work with the spotlight shining in your eyes." "There's a danger of being seduced into being self-conscious, as well as being aware of your 'career.' It can be lethal." He became more worried about "the idea of the creative spirit" in the film industry. Broadcast News brought this ambivalence into the broadcasting world. Brooks felt he should say "something new... in the sense" that "one of the things you should do every once in a while as a filmmaker is to capture time and place." "I was just glad there was some way to do it in a comedies," Robbie says. In the three main roles, William Hurt, Holly Hunter, and Albert Brooks (no relation) appeared.

He wanted to film the film in a field he knew and opted for broadcast journalism. Brooks realized it had "changed so much since I'd been near it," after speaking with network journalists at the 1984 Republican National Convention, and that "did about a year and a half of solid research" into the field. Brooks said he "didn't like any of the three [main] characters" when he began writing it, but decided not to change them after two months had changed his mind. "You're always meant to arc your characters, so this is also true for you," Brooks said. I hope that this film will include the audience in the process. So what happens is that the movie doesn't select its own hero. Each person is different. According to which character they hook to, the audience contributes to the story. He did not reach a decision on the film's ending before the majority of it was finished. For Broadcast News, Brooks was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. The film was nominated for the Golden Bear and Holly Hunter for Best Actress at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival.

"I'll Do Anything," Nick Nolte's 1994 film, was developed and shot by Brooks as an old-fashioned movie musical and parody of "Hollywood lifestyles and movie clichés," costing $40 million. Among other items, it featured songs by Carole King, Prince, and Sinéad O'Connor, as well as choreography by Twyla Tharp. When preview audience reactions to the music were mostly critical, Brooks and MacDonald wrote several new scenes, filming them for three days and then reducing the film to two hours. "Something like this not only tests one's soul," Brooks wrote, "it threatens one's soul." Although Brooks did not hesitate to edit his films much after preview screenings, he was "denied any privacy" because the media announced the negative reviews before they were published, and "it had to be strong enough to combat all the bad news." It was a commercial failure, and Brooks attempted to produce a film about it four years later, but it was foiled when he refused to obtain the rights to Prince's music.

Brooks decided to produce and direct Old Friends, a screenplay by Mark Andrus. "You should suspend disbelief," Andrus' script "included" but Brooks understood "my style when directing is that I really don't know how to persuade people to suspend disbelief." Brooks spent a year updating the screenplay: "There were updates made and the emphasis was changed, but it's the product, not the services of a very unusual writing team" and the venture took a year to produce after funding was won. Brooks "was constantly learning, always reshooting, continually reediting" the film, modifying its ending five times and encouraging the actors to improvise the film's tone, according to The New York Times.

The film earned more accolades than I'll Do Anything and Brooks was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. As Good as It Gets was nominated for Best Actor Jack Nicholson and Best Actress for Helen Hunt, a total of seven Academy Award nominations, with two of which received two. The Chicago Reader's Jonathan Rosenbaum praised it as Brooks' best film, adding, "what Brooks does with [the characters] as they try to reconcile with one another is funny, painful, beautiful, and generally a triumph for everyone concerned." It also ranked 140 in Empire's 2008 list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time." With the actor receiving an Academy Award for each role, Brooks cast Jack Nicholson in both Terms of Endeavation and As Good as It Gets.

Until Spanglish, Brooks did not produce or write a film again for seven years. Shooting lasted six months and came to an end in June with three days of additional shooting in October; Brooks directed three endings for the film, shooting numerous scenes in "15 to 25 takes" as he did not feel the script had changed much during recording; the script did not change much during recording. Based on his success in Punch-Drunk Love and Sandler's closeness with his family, he opted to cast Adam Sandler in a more dramatic role than his usual goofball comedy roles. Brooks characterized the length of the film: "It's amazing how much more perverse you are as a writer than as a director." I remember being so grateful that I'd pushed myself into certain corners [while writing]. I was hoping that it would be fun to watch it. It was a different story when I had to deal with it as a producer. Brooks' directing style "drove [the cast] bats," including Téa Leoni, with Cloris Leachman (who replaced an ill Anne Bancroft a month before filming) calling it "free-falling." You are not going to get a result. To see where it lands, let's just throw it in the air and see where it lands." The film was poorly received and was a box-office failure, grossing $55 million worldwide on a $80 million production budget.

Brooks produced, directed, and wrote his next film, How Do You Know It, which was released on December 17, 2010. Reese Witherspoon plays Reese Witherspoon as a professional softball player embroiled in a love triangle in the film. Brooks began working on the film in 2005, aiming to produce a film about a teenage female celebrity. "The dilemmas of young business executives," he was also interested in "the issues of modern business executives," who are often held accountable for corporate conduct for which they may not even be aware." For this story, Paul Rudd and Jack Nicholson invented Paul Rudd and Jack Nicholson's characters. The film was completed in November 2009, but Brooks reshot the film's opening and ending later. "Maybe the most closely guarded of Columbia's movies this year," the New York Times said. Brooks was paid $10 million for the scheme, which cost $100 million. The film was largely ignored. "The characters were stick figures, the jokes were flat, the stories were bizarre," Patrick Goldstein wrote in the Los Angeles Times. Brooks had "finally lost his comic mojo," he said, "his films had a wonderfully restless, neurotic energy," he said, but how Does It Work "really laurels?" says the film director. Brooks' "spark" was also lost in the film, according to Variety's Peter Debruge. Richard Corliss of Time was more optimistic, saying "without being superb, it's still the best romantic comedy of the year" for those dreaming up heroes and heroines who tremble amusingly."

In 1986, Brooks formed Gracie Films, his own film and television production company. Big (1988) and The War of the Roses (1989). Brooks mentored Cameron Crowe (1989), was the executive producer of Crowe's directorial debut Say Something (1989) and produced his later film Jerry Maguire (1996). After their feature-length script and short film version of Bottle Rocket (1996) were brought to Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson, he was also aided by Brooks. After agreeing to produce the film, Brooks went to Wilson and Anderson's apartment in Dallas. Wilson wrote: "I think he felt sorry for us." Brooks maintained faith in the scheme despite having "the worst [script] reading [Brooks] had ever heard. In 1990, Brooks produced and directed Brooklyn Laundry, his first dramatic performance. Glenn Close, Woody Harrelson, and Laura Dern appeared on it. In 2007, Brooks appeared alongside Nora Ephron, Carrie Fisher, and others in Dreams on Spec, a Hollywood documentary about screenwriting.

Despite Brooks' "never meant" to return to television, he was assisting Tracey Ullman in the beginning of The Tracey Ullman Show, and when she couldn't find another producer, he stepped in. Brooks requested Life in Hell cartoonist Matt Groening to pitch an idea for a series of animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show on Thursday at the suggestion of a friend and colleague Polly Platt, who gave Brooks the nine panel Life in Hell cartoon "The Los Angeles Way of Death" which hangs outside Brooks' Gracie Films office. Groening was initially planned to debut a life in Hell video. However, when Groening discovered that animating Life in Hell would require the cancellation of publication rights for his life's work, he took another route and created his version of a dysfunctional family in Brooks' lobby. Following the success of the shorts, the Fox Broadcasting Company commissioned a series of half-hour episodes of the show, now called The Simpsons, which Brooks produced alongside Groening and Sam Simon. Brooks negotiated a clause in the Fox network's deal that prohibited Fox from interfering with the show's wishes. Brooks contributed more to the episode "Lisa's Subtute" than to any other in the show's history, according to writer Jon Vitti. The Simpsons gained acclaim for their uniqueness and commercial success, and they're still creating original content after 30 years. Time magazine named The Simpsons the century's best television series in a 1998 issue honoring the twentieth century's greatest contributions to art and entertainment. In 1997, Brooks was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

Brooks and Groening were embroiled in a public discussion about the episode "A Star Is Burns" in 1995. Groening found that the episode was a 30-minute advertisement for Brooks' show The Critic (which had been moved to Fox from ABC for its second season), and that lead character Jay Sherman appeared in the episode. He wished Brooks would cancel the episode because "articles began to appear in several newspapers around the country claiming that [Groening] invented The Critic" and stripping his name from the credits. "I am furious with Matt," Brooks said in reaction, "he's been going to everybody who wears a suit at Fox and ranting about it." He was correct and we accepted his changes as he voiced his doubts about how to bring The Critic into the Simpsons' universe. Sure, he has respected his opinion, but doing it in the press goes too far. ... He is a born, cute, cuddly ingrate. But his behavior right now is rotten."

The Critic was short-lived, airing ten episodes on Fox before its cancellation. Only 23 episodes were recorded, and it returned to earth in 2000 with a series of ten internet broadcast webisodes. Thanks to reruns on Comedy Central and the complete series's release on DVD, the series has since established a following. Sibs and Phenom, both produced as part of an ABC multi-show contract, and the 2001 film What About Joan were all short-lived.

The Simpsons Movie co-produced and co-wrote the 2007 feature-length film version of The Simpsons. For the first time since the television show's early seasons, he directed the voice cast. The recording sessions were "more intense" than recording the television series and "more dramatic," according to Dan Castellaneta. Any scenes, such as Marge's video greeting to Homer, were shot more than a hundred times, causing the voice cast to be teep. Brooks had the vision for, co-produced, and co-wrote the Maggie-centric short film The Longest Daycare, which premiered in front of Ice Age: Continental Drift in 2012. In 2013, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

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