James Lawrence Brooks was born on the 9th May 1940, in Brooklyn, New York City USA, and is a producer, screenwriter, and director, certainly best known as the writer and executive producer of the animated series “The Simpsons” (1989- ). Brooks also wrote and directed the movies “Terms of Endearment” (1983) and “As Good as It Gets” (1997), and has received three Oscars, a Golden Globe, and 20 Emmy Awards. These series and films significantly increased his net worth. Brooks has been an active member of the entertainment industry since 1965.
Have you ever wondered how rich James L. Brooks is, as of mid-2016? According to authoritative sources, it has been estimated that James L. Brooks’ net worth is as high as $500 million, an amount earned through his successful career as a writer and producer. In addition to being one of the most accomplished writers in Hollywood, Brooks has also worked as a director which has improved his wealth, and he owns a television and film company.
James L. Brooks Net Worth $500 Million
James Brooks was born a son of Edward M. Brooks and Dorothy Helen, both salespeople, and grew up in Bergen, New Jersey with an older sister. His father left the family when finding out that his mother was pregnant with him – Brooks lost the contact with father when he was 12. He started to write comedy short stories in his childhood, and although receiving some positive critiques, he failed to publish any of them. He went to Weehawken High School and although not a particularly good achiever, he worked on the school’s newspaper.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, Brooks dropped-out of university, and after wortking in relatively casual jobs, started his writing career in 1965, with two episodes for the TV series “Men in Crisis”, and for a sports documentary “October Madness: The World Series”. Next year he wrote for “My Mother the Car” (1966), “Time-Life Specials: The March of Time” (1966), and That Girl (1966-1967). In the following years, Brooks usually wrote just an episode or two for various shows, but his biggest success to that point came in 1969 when he created “Room 222” (1969-1974), which ran for five seasons and had seven Golden Globe nominations, and certainly increased his net worth.
He and Allan Burns created the comedy series “Mary Tyler Moore” (1970-1977), for which Brooks wrote 168 episodes; the series was highly popular and earned three Golden Globes. At the end of the 70’s, Brooks worked on “Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers” (1974-1975), a double Golden Globe-winning series “Rhoda” (1974-1978), and wrote the scripts for the movies “Thursday’s Game” (1974) starring Gene Wilder, Bob Newhart and Ellen Burstyn, and “Cindy” (1978).
Brooks also wrote, “Lou Grant” (1977-1982) and “Taxi” (1978-1983) with Judd Hirsch, Jeff Conaway, Danny DeVito, before making his directing debut with “Terms of Endearment” (1983) starring Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, and Jack Nicholson, for which he also wrote the script. The movie brought him international glory, three Oscars, and dramatically improved his wealth.
Brooks’ next big achievement was the movie “Broadcast News” (1987) with William Hurt, Albert Brooks and Holly Hunter, which he directed and wrote; the film was nominated for seven Oscars and five Golden Globes. Soon after, he created “The Tracey Ullman Show” (1987-1990) and hired Matt Groening to write sketches for the show, with whom two years later he teamed-up to create one of the greatest series of all time – “The Simpsons”. The show won numerous awards and became a worldwide brand that is still running, brought Brooks astronomical fame, and significantly improved his net worth.
Thanks to his skills, Brooks has received numerous awards; apart from three Oscars for the film “Terms of Endearment”, and a Golden Globe for the same film, he has 47 Emmy nominations, of which he won 20, mostly for “The Simpsons” but also Emmy awards for “Taxi”, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”, and “The Tracey Ullman Show”. Furthermore he has received the Laurel Award for TV Writing Achievement by the Writers guild of America, among many other awards.
Regarding his personal life, James L. Brooks was married twice; his first wife was Marianne Catherine Morrissey from 1964 to 1972, with whom he has a daughter. His second wife was Holly Beth Holmberg from 1978 to 1999 and the couple has three children
Academy Award for Best Director, for Best Writing, for Best Picture (1983), Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award (1987), Satellite Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy (1997), Golden Globe Award for Best Director, for Best Screenplay (1997), San Diego Film Critics Society Award ...
Nominations
Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, Golden Globe Award for Best Director - Motion Picture, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, Producers Guild of America Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special, Writers Gu...
Movies
"The Simpsons Movie" (2007), "As Good as It Gets" (1997), "I'll Do Anything" (1994), "Spanglish" (2004), "The War of the Roses" (1989), "How Do You Know" (2010)
TV Shows
“The Simpsons” (1989- ), “Mary Tyler Moore” (1970-1977), “Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers” (1974-1975), “Rhoda” (1974-1978), “Lou Grant” (1977-1982), “Taxi” (1978-1983)
[accepting the Best Picture Oscar for Terms of Endearment (1983)] It took a long time to get the picture made and this community has been generous to this picture from long before it was made. There was a lot about every studio turning it down; I think it's much more significant that a Hollywood studio made it and that [the] Hollywood studio was flexible and that the studio ended up happy that it made it--I think that's significant. too, that there was an audience for this picture.
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People used to say, you know you're in the hands of a good screenwriter when you're not aware of the writing. I've never subscribed to that. In Juno (2007), suddenly you're riveted by the fact that people haven't talked like that before. I think the treat is always when you are aware of the writing.
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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.
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[in 2014] The great thing in television, usually the writer's in charge. It's the one place. In movies it's certainly not true. But in television it's true and there's something--the inmates running the asylum and all that. And there's something to that. Right now, there are so many great shows that are truly authored. It's a place where writers are in charge. Right now, a lot of the great things we see each year will be on television.
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[on being employed by a studio] Sometimes they give you so much rope you forget it's around your neck. But it always is. You feel it when they yank it.
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[on I'll Do Anything (1994)] I wanted to do a Hollywood story. At the time it seemed to me, and it turned out to be a real miscalculation, to get the truth about Hollywood, the form had to be larger than life, a musical. I did a lot of strange things on that. Because of my background I went for actors on it and not singers. I'm in love with actors. I had great musical people, the best. I had Twyla Tharp as my choreographer. Prince as my songwriter. Sinéad O'Connor did one song, a beautiful song. And I went to work, and it was the first time I fell in love with my leading lady, who was this six-year-old magical child. And her mother was great--part of the movie was based on my experience with my own two daughters, and I sort of became a surrogate dad. I had all these other people around me that I loved and it was great. And then we went to our first preview. And it was a disaster. We had walkouts, it was awful. Then the worst thing of all happened--someone who saw it told somebody who told somebody who told the Los Angeles Times about what had happened, and then they came after the story. So now here I was trying to fix the film and I actually have the major home-town newspaper publish what had happened, and kill us dead in the water. And they made a story out of my odyssey, came to my next preview and it was just horrendous. So eventually I pared down the music, took almost all of it out. And you can speculate on a lot of things about why the picture didn't work. I'm a guy who started out in one form and changed it to another, but the movie played and people laughed, because I saw it with an audience. But it utterly failed commercially and I felt like I had let down a lot of people. It's my job to take it personally. When I ask people to join me and work with me, who else is responsible? But I haven't seen the movie in a long time and I still think it's a good movie.
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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.
He was commissioned to do a screen adaptation of Terms of Endearment (1983) by wealthy businessman Norton Simon and his wife, the former actress Jennifer Jones, as a comeback vehicle for her. Brooks decided he didn't 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.
During the opening credits for some of the seasons of Mary Tyler Moore (1970), 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.
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His laughter is heard in the studio audience of many shows he produced, especially Taxi (1978), 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.
Won 19 Prime Time Emmy awards--more than any person in history. As producer he has won nine for The Simpsons (1989), three for Taxi (1978), three for Mary Tyler Moore (1970) and one for The Tracey Ullman Show (1987); as writer he won two for "Mary Tyler Moore" and one for "The Tracey Ullman Show".
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Member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Writers Branch) [2006-]