Shonda Rhimes
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| Born: | January 13, 1970 (age 37) Chicago, Illinois, USA |
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| Occupation: | producer, screenwriter, and director. |
Shonda Rhimes (born January 13, 1970 in Chicago, Illinois) is a screenwriter, director and producer. She is best known as the creator and executive producer of television series Grey's Anatomy.
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[edit] Personal Life
Rhimes grew up in the Chicago suburb of Park Forest South (University Park). Both her parents were in academia; her father was a university administrator, and her mother was a professor. She is the youngest among three older sisters and two older brothers[1].
She first attended Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, Illinois. She attended Dartmouth College and earned a bachelor's degree in 1991; several years later, she earned a master of fine arts from the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television.
Rhimes has an adopted daughter named Harper (born 2003).
[edit] Career
Rhimes initially struggled to find a writing or production gig after graduation. For a time, she lived with her sister in San Francisco and worked in advertising. Later, she worked as an office administrator, and then as a counselor at a job center that taught mentally ill and homeless people job skills.
Eventually, Rhimes began to break into the market, and sold several scripts. Her writing/directing debut was with the 1997 short film Blossoms and Veils.
She was hired to write the script for the HBO movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.
When that movie was a critical and commercial success, she was hired to write Crossroads and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.
Rhimes currently has a three-picture deal with Disney for additional films.
Rhimes won the cast Best Drama TV Series Golden Globe award in 2007 for Grey's Anatomy.
[edit] Grey's Anatomy
Shonda Rhimes is the creator and executive producer of Grey's Anatomy, as well as one of the show's many writers. The ABC series debuted as a midseason replacement on March 27, 2005. The show revolves around Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), a surgical intern at the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital in Seattle, Washington. The show features an ensemble cast, but Meredith is featured as the main character, with a voice-over narration at the beginning and end of most episodes.
On May 16, 2006 the morning following the close of the second season, ABC announced plans for a third season of Grey's Anatomy to anchor the network's Thursday evening programming[2], by airing Thursdays at 9PM EST. As Thursday has historically been the most competitive programming night among American broadcast networks, the announced schedule change for the series has been viewed by media analysts as another vote of confidence in the series from ABC.
[edit] Trivia
- Rhimes has a reputation for being extremely close-lipped about "spoilers" on the set of Grey's Anatomy, in an effort to maintain intrigue about what will happen in the storyline. To maintain the element of surprise when two previously unlinked characters had a sexual encounter, the actors were given the pages of the script at the end of the day once most of the cast and crew had left.
- As a Dartmouth alumna, Rhimes often peppers the scripts with references to the college.
- Rhimes has said that of all of the Grey's Anatomy characters, her own personality is best represented by the character of Meredith; however, she also draws some similarities with the no-nonsense natures of Miranda Bailey and Cristina Yang. [1]
- Rhimes has said that her time spent as a candy striper while in high school sparked an interest in hospital environments.
- Rhimes has said in several interviews that she already has the "bible" of Grey's Anatomy mapped out, and has planned the arc of each season.
- Rhimes has another show in development, regarding a group of female journalists and war correspondents. The show was actually developed before Grey's Anatomy, but its subject matter ran into resistance at the time (near the 2003 invasion of Iraq).
[edit] External links
- 'Grey Matter' Writer's Blog on ABC.com
- Shonda Rhimes at the Internet Movie Database
- Shonda Rhimes at TV.com
- Interview with Shonda Rhimes on the Tavis Smiley show
- Oct 05 Ebony article on Shonda Rhimes
- Writer's Guild of America profile
[edit] Sources
- www.greysanatomyinsider.com
- IMDB Film & Television Database
- Media Post
- TV.com
- New York Times
Categories: 1970 births | Grey's Anatomy | African-American film directors | African-American television producers | African American writers | American film directors | American television producers | American television writers | American screenwriters | People from Chicago | Chicago writers | Dartmouth College alumni | Living people | English-language film directors
