Albert Brooks

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Albert Brooks (born July 22, 1947 as Albert Lawrence Einstein) is an Academy Award nominated American actor, writer, comedian and director.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Brooks was born Albert Lawrence Einstein in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California to a Jewish American family. His father, Harry Einstein, was a comedian who performed on Eddie Cantor's radio program and was known as Parkyarkarkus. His mother was actress Thelma Leeds (born Thelma Goodman). His brother is Bob Einstein, better known by his stage name "Super Dave Osborne".

Brooks grew up among show business royalty in southern California, attending high school with Richard Dreyfuss and Rob Reiner.

[edit] Early career

Brooks attended Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, but dropped out after one year to focus on his comedy career. He changed his surname from Einstein (to avoid confusion with the famous scientist) and began a stand-up comedy career that quickly made him a regular on variety and talk shows during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Brooks led a new generation of self-reflective baby-boomer comics appearing on the NBC network Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. His onstage persona, that of an egotistical, narcissistic, nervous comic, an ironic showbiz insider who punctured himself before an audience by disassembling his mastery of comedic stagecraft, influenced other 70's post-modern comedians, including Steve Martin, Martin Mull and Andy Kaufman.

After two successful comedy albums, Comedy Minus One (1974) and the Grammy Award-nominated A Star is Bought (1975), Brooks left the standup circuit to try his hand as a filmmaker; his first film, The Famous Comedians School, was a satiric short which appeared on PBS and was an early example of the mockumentary sub-genre.

In 1975, he directed six short films for the first season of NBC's Saturday Night Live:

In 1976 he appeared in his first mainstream film role, in Scorsese's landmark Taxi Driver (Scorsese allowed Brooks to improvise much of his dialogue). The role reflected Brooks's decision to move to Los Angeles to get into the film business.

Brooks directed his first feature film, Real Life, in 1979. The film, in which Brooks obnoxiously films a typical suburban family in an effort to win both an Oscar and a Nobel Prize, was a sendup of PBS's An American Family documentary. Brooks also made a brief cameo in the film Private Benjamin (1980), starring Goldie Hawn.

[edit] 1980s–1990s

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Brooks co-wrote (with longtime collaborator Monica Johnson), directed and starred in a series of moderately-successful comedies, playing variants on his standard neurotic and self-obsessed character. These include 1981's Modern Romance, where Brooks played a film editor desperate to win back his ex-girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold). The film received a limited release and ultimately grossed under $3 million domestically,[1] but was well received by critics, with one reviewer commenting that the film was "not Brooks at his best, but still amusing".[2] His best-received film, Lost in America (1985), featured Brooks and Julie Hagerty as a couple who leave their yuppie lifestyle, drop out of society and live in a motor home, only to find the disadvantages of poverty.

Brooks's Defending Your Life (1991) placed his lead character in the afterlife, put on trial to justify his human failings and to determine his cosmic fate. Critics responded to the offbeat premise and the surprising chemistry between Brooks and Meryl Streep as his post-death love interest. His later efforts did not find large audiences, but still retained Brooks's touch as a filmmaker. He garnered positive reviews for Mother (1996), which starred Brooks as a middle-aged writer moving back home to resolve his tensions with his mother (Debbie Reynolds). 1999's The Muse featured Brooks as a down-and-out Hollywood screenwriter using the services of an authentic muse (Sharon Stone) for inspiration.

Brooks also acted in other writers' and directors' films during the 1980s and 1990s. He moved into the horror genre in one of the stories in Twilight Zone: The Movie, playing an unsuspecting driver who picks up a suspicious hitchhiker (Dan Aykroyd). In James L. Brooks's hit Broadcast News (1987), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as an insecure, supremely ethical network TV reporter, who offers the rhetorical question, "Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive?" He also won positive notices for his role in 1998's Out of Sight, playing an untrustworthy banker and ex-convict.

[edit] 2000s

Brooks received positive reviews for his portrayal of a dying retail store owner who befriends disillusioned teen Leelee Sobieski in My First Mister (2001), and he has appeared as a guest voice on The Simpsons five times during its run (always under the name A. Brooks). Brooks continued his voiceover work in Disney and Pixar's Finding Nemo (2003), as the voice of "Marlin", the film's protagonist; Nemo is Brooks's largest grossing film to date.

In 2005, his film Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World drew controversy for its title. Sony Pictures eventually dropped the film altogether because of their desire to change the title. Subsequently, Warner Independent Pictures purchased the film and gave it a limited release in January 2006; the film received mixed reviews and a low box office gross. The movie goes back to the days of Brooks's Real Life, as Brooks once again plays himself, a filmmaker commissioned by the U.S. government to see what makes the Muslim people laugh, thus sending him on a tour of India and Pakistan.

[edit] Personal life

Brooks was romantically linked to singer Linda Ronstadt and actresses Carrie Fisher, Julie Hagerty and Kathryn Harrold. He married Kimberly Shlain, an artist. They met through a mutual friend. The couple have two children, Jacob Eli (born 1998) and Claire Elizabeth (born 2000).

Brooks resides in Los Angeles.

[edit] Selected filmography

Brooks in Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
Brooks in Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
Year Title Role Notes
1975-1976 Saturday Night Live n/a writer, director various short films/segments
1976 Taxi Driver Tom
1979 Real Life Himself writer, director
1981 Modern Romance Robert Cole writer, director
1983 Twilight Zone: The Movie Car Driver (Prologue)
1985 Lost In America David Howard writer, director
1984 Unfaithfully Yours Norman Robbins
1987 Broadcast News Aaron Altman
1991 Defending Your Life Daniel Miller writer, director
1994 I'll Do Anything Burke Adler
1994 The Scout Al Percolo also writer
1996 Mother John Henderson writer, director
1997 Critical Care Dr. Butz
1998 Out of Sight Richard Ripley
1998 Dr. Dolittle Tiger voice only
1999 The Muse Steven Phillips writer, director
2001 My First Mister Randall 'R' Harris
2003 The In-Laws Jerry Peyser
2003 Finding Nemo Marlin voice only
2006 Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World Himself writer, director
2007 The Simpsons Movie voice only

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/. Modern Romance box office. Retrieved on 12 March, 2006.
  2. ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/. Modern Romance (1981). Retrieved on 12 March, 2006.

[edit] External links

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