Draughtsman act.19th-20th centuries
Daughters: Amy Brooks ; born 1971 and Chloe Brooks. Son: Cooper Brooks.
Owns Gracie Films which produces "The Simpsons" .
He is among an elite group of seven directors who have won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (Original/Adapted) Oscars for the same film. In 1984 he won all three for Terms of Endearment . The other directors are Leo McCarey (for Going My Way ), Billy Wilder (for The Apartment ), Francis Ford Coppola (for The Godfather: Part II ), Peter Jackson (for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ), Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (the brothers co-produced, co-directed and co-wrote No Country for Old Men with each other), and Alejandro G. Irritu (for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) ). Brooks is the only one to do so with his directorial debut and the only one to do so without collaborators in any of the three categories.
Directed nine different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Shirley MacLaine , Jack Nicholson , Debra Winger , John Lithgow , Holly Hunter , William Hurt , Albert Brooks , Helen Hunt , Greg Kinnear. Nicholson, MacLaine and Hunt won Oscars for their performances in one of Brooks movies (Nicholson twice).
Member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Writers Branch) [2006-]
Won 19 Prime Time Emmy awards--more than any person in history. As producer he has won nine for "The Simpsons" , three for "Taxi" , three for "Mary Tyler Moore" and one for "The Tracey Ullman Show" ; as writer he won two for "Mary Tyler Moore" and one for "The Tracey Ullman Show".
Was best man at Norman Pearlstine s and Nancy Friday s wedding.
His laughter is heard in the studio audience of many shows he produced, especially "Taxi" , in which his laughter is heard through all five seasons. It appears louder than any of the other audience members, sounding like a "Haw", sustaining the "Aw" sound.
During the opening credits for some of the seasons of "Mary Tyler Moore" , there is a scene of Mary filming by the one of the lakes in Minneapolis. During that scene, two men jog by--one of them is Brooks.
Discovered Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson , which resulted in their movie Bottle Rocket .
He was commissioned to do a screen adaptation of Terms of Endearment by wealthy businessman Norton Simon and his wife, the former actress Jennifer Jones , as a comeback vehicle for her. Brooks decided he didnt want to have to adapt the character of Aurora to a particular actress, and persuaded Paramount to buy the rights from the Simons. He cast Shirley MacLaine because she was the only actress who viewed the story as a comedy. When he won the screenplay Oscar, Brooks thanked Jennifer Jones Simon.
Along with Delbert Mann , Jerome Robbins , Robert Redford , Kevin Costner and Sam Mendes , he is one of only six people to win the Academy Award for Best Director for their directorial debut: Mann for Marty , Robbins for West Side Story (which he co-directed with Robert Wise , Redford for Ordinary People , Brooks for Terms of Endearment , Costner for Dances with Wolves and Mendes for American Beauty .
I saw Annie Hall (1977) with a group of people working in comedy,and television. We were all stunned. Stunned. It was like watching a,spaceship land. That something that funny could also be that beautiful.
I took some time out for life.
