David Mamet

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet is one of a handful of American playwrights whose work has found almost as much success on the screen as it has on the stage. Noted for his spare, gritty work that reflects the hardened attitudes of his native Chicago and often revolves around domineering male characters and their macho posturing, Mamet has time and again spurred both discussion and controversy.

A Chicago native, Mamet studied at Goddard College and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in New York. He returned Chicago to found the St. Nicholas Theatre Company and also worked for a time as the artistic director of the Goodman Theatre. Mamet first earned acclaim in 1976 for a trio of Off-Off Broadway plays, “The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago,” and “America Buffalo.” The latter two works were later adapted for the screen, the first becoming the film About Last Night.

Mamet began writing for the screen with a re-make of The Postman Always Rings Twice. After winning a Pulitzer for his play “Glengarry Glen Ross” that was made into a film with Mamet's own script, he had his first true screen success as a screenwriter with The Untouchables. He also earned critical acclaim for his directorial debut, House of Games, a crime thriller about a psychologist caught up in an elaborate con game.

After directing two more celebrated features, Things Change and Homicide, Mamet turned primarily to screenwriting (stepping back behind the camera to direct an adaptation of his controversial play “Oleanna,”) and giving voice to such films as Hoffa, Malcolm X, and Vanya on 42nd Street. His screenplay for the political satire Wag the Dog earned Mamet both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Screenplay. He returned to directing with The Spanish Prisoner, a thriller that starred Steve Martin in an uncharacteristically dark performance.

After writing The Edge, an adventure drama starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, Mamet returned to the screen with The Winslow Boy. It was a radical change in material for Mamet -- an Edwardian courtroom drama -- and stood as a sizable testament to his versatility. He followed up with State and Main and crafted the screenplay for The Silence of the Lambs sequel Hannibal. The following year Mamet once again stepped behind the camera for the crime drama that offered memorable performances by Gene Hackman and Danny De Vito

He followed up with the political thriller Spartan and Edmond, the drama/thriller. In 2006, he was the mastermind behind the military covert-ops action hit, The Unit, serving as an executive producer and writing or directing some of the 13 episodes.

Mamet has published three novels, The Village, The Old Religion, and Wilson: a Consideration of the Sources. He has also written several non-fiction texts as well as a number of poems and children's stories. Since May 2005 he's been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post. The majority of his posts are scans of his own doodles, all political satires laced with humor.