James L. Brooks

JAMES L. BROOKS

Date of birth: May 9, 1940

Born in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks began his professional career as a copyboy for CBS News in New York. He moved to Los Angeles in 1965 and was soon playing the TV game with the best of them. The first show he created was the hit teen series Room 222, which received many awards and commendations from educational and civil rights groups for its willingness to tackle tough problems head on -- such as racial prejudice, drug abuse and dropping out of school.

Brooks next teamed up with the legendary Allan Burns (The Bullwinkle Show) and the two created the premise behind the hugely successful The Mary Tyler Moore Show. That show spun off into his involvement with Rhoda and Lou Grant and on to Taxi and Cheers and right on up to another enormously successful TV show -- The Simpsons. Altogether, Brooks has won 18 Emmy awards.

Not content with just his small screen success, he also proved himself more than adept on the big screen as the writer and director and sometimes also producer of some very memorable -- often Oscar-nominated and sometimes Oscar winning -- films. He has won three Oscars and a Golden Globe for his involvement as director, producer and writer of Terms of Endearment (1983).

Since then, he has received five more producing/writing Oscar nominations, for his involvement in the films Broadcast News (1987), Jerry Maguire (1996) and As Good As It Gets (1997).

Married twice, Brooks has two daughters and a son with second wife, Holly Beth Holmberg.

Filmography:

Spanglish (2004)
As Good As It Gets (1997)
I'll Do Anything (1994)
Say Anything... (1989)
Broadcast News (1987)
Terms of Endearment (1983)