Biography for
James L. Brooks

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Daughters: Amy Brooks; born 1971 and Chloe Brooks. Son: Cooper Brooks.

Owns Gracie Films which produces "The Simpsons" (1989).

He is among an elite group of 7 Directors who have won best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (Original/Adapted) for the same film. In 1984 he won all three for Terms of Endearment (1983). The other directors are Leo McCarey (for Going My Way (1944)), Billy Wilder (for The Apartment (1960)), Francis Ford Coppola (for The Godfather: Part II (1974)), Peter Jackson (for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)) and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (the brothers co-produced, co-directed and co-wrote No Country for Old Men (2007) with each other). Brooks is the only one to do so with his directorial debut.

Directed 9 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.

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 9 for "The Simpsons" (1989), 3 for "Taxi" (1978), 3 for "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970) and 1 for "The Tracey Ullman Show" (1987), and as writer he won 2 for "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970) and 1 for "The Tracey Ullman Show" (1987).

Was best man at Norman Pearlstine's and Nancy Friday's wedding.

Personal Quotes

"While you're doing it, it is sort of a lonely kind of feeling, even though you are surrounded by so many people giving beyond the call. That's generally true of movies, there's a sense of urgency, people risking their tail, people working past exhaustion. That's what moviemaking is. It's lonely because you asked all of them to work that hard for this idea you had."

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