James L. Brooks

James Lawrence Brooks born May 9 1940 is an American director producer screenwriter and cofounder of Gracie Films He cocreated the sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show Taxi and The Simpsons and directed the films Terms of Endearment 1983 Broadcast News 1987 and As Good as It Gets 1997 He received numerous accolades including three Academy Awards 22 Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award Brooks started his career as an usher at CBS going on to write for the CBS News broadcasts He moved to Los Angeles in 1965 to work on David L Wolpers documentaries He wrote for My Mother the Car and My Friend Tony and created the series Room 222 Grant Tinker hired Brooks and producer Allan Burns at MTM Productions to create The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970 Brooks and Burns then created two successful spinoffs from Mary Tyler Moore Rhoda a comedy and Lou Grant a drama Brooks left MTM Productions in 1978 to cocreate the sitcom Taxi 19781983 Brooks moved into feature film work when he wrote and coproduced the 1979 film Starting Over His next project was the critically acclaimed film Terms of Endearment which he produced directed and wrote winning an Academy Award for all three roles He earned acclaim for his films Broadcast News 1987 and As Good as It Gets 1997 He received mixed reviews for  Ill Do Anything 1994 Spanglish 2004 and How Do You Know 2010 Brooks also produced Cameron Crowes Say Anything 1989 and Wes Andersons Bottle Rocket 1996 In 1986 Brooks founded Gracie Films a television and film company Although he did not intend to do so Brooks returned to television in 1987 as the producer of The Tracey Ullman Show He hired cartoonist Matt Groening to create a series of shorts for the show which led in 1989 to The Simpsons The Simpsons won numerous awards and is still running after over 35 years Brooks also coproduced and cowrote the 2007 film adaptation of the show The Simpsons Movie Brooks has received 53 Emmy nominations winning 21 of them Description above from the Wikipedia article James L Brooks licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia