BARRY LEVINSON

'Barry Levinson' (born April 6, 1942 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an Academy Award-winning American screenwriter, film director, actor, and producer of film and television.

Contents

Career

External links

Career

After growing up in Baltimore and graduating from Forest Park Senior High School, Levinson attended American University in Washington, D.C. before moving to Los Angeles to work as an actor and writer. His first writing work was for variety shows such as ''The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine'', ''The Lohman and Barkley Show'', ''The Tim Conway Show'', and ''The Carol Burnett Show''.
After some success as a screenwriter (''Silent Movie'', 1976, ''High Anxiety'' (in which he made a cameo appearance as a bellboy), 1977, ...And Justice for All, 1979), he began his career as a director with ''Diner'' (1982), for which he had also written the script and which earned him a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination. ''Diner'' was the first of a series of films set in the Baltimore of Levinson's youth. The other films in this series were ''Tin Men'' (1987), starring Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito, and the turn-of-the-century immigrant family saga ''Avalon'' (which featured Elijah Wood in one of his earliest screen appearances), as well as the more recent ''Liberty Heights'' (1999). All four movies were written and directed by Barry Levinson himself; for the last two he also acted as producer.
His biggest hit, both critically and financially, was ''Rain Man'' (1988) with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise (in which he also appeared as an antagonistic doctor). The film won four Academy Awards including Best Director for Levinson. Other notable films in his directing career were ''The Natural'' (which starred Robert Redford, who later directed ''Quiz Show'', which included an appearance by Levinson playing Dave Garroway) (1984), ''Good Morning, Vietnam'' (1987) and ''Toys'' (1992), both with Robin Williams, and ''Bugsy'' (1991) with Warren Beatty.
He directed Dustin Hoffman again in ''Wag the Dog'' (1997), a political comedy about a war staged in a film studio. He was also an uncredited co-writer on Dustin Hoffman's transvestite comedy ''Tootsie'' (1982).
Barry partnered with producer Mark Johnson to form the film production company Baltimore Pictures, until the duo parted ways in 1994.
Apart from producing many of his own films, he has also been producer or executive producer for such major productions as ''The Perfect Storm'' (directed by Wolfgang Petersen, 2000), ''Analyze That'' (2002, starring Robert de Niro as neurotic mafia boss and Billy Crystal as his therapist), and ''Possession'' (2002, based on the bestselling novel by A. S. Byatt). He also has a television production company with Tom Fontana (The Levinson/Fontana Company) and served as executive producer for a number of their series, including '' (which ran on NBC from 1993-1999) and the HBO prison drama ''Oz''. Levinson also played a main role in the short-lived TV series ''The Jury'', where he played a judge (the role was uncredited).
Levinson published his first novel, ''Sixty-Six'' (ISBN 0-7679-1533-X), in 2003. Like several of his films, it is semi-autobiographical and set in Baltimore in the early 1960s.
Levinson also directed the two webisodes of the American Express ads "The Adventures of Seinfeld and Superman."
Levinson married his writing collaborator Valerie Curtin in 1975. They would divorce seven years later. He later married Dianna Rhodes whom he met in Baltimore while filming ''Diner''.
Levinson is a minority owner of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.

External links

★ Official site

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