David Benioff
| David Benioff | |
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Benioff in 2013.
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| Born | David Friedman September 25, 1970 New York City, New York |
| Alma mater | Dartmouth College The Collegiate School Trinity College Dublin University of California, Irvine |
| Occupation | Novelist, screenwriter, television producer |
| Spouse(s) | Amanda Peet (m. 2006) |
| Children | 3 |
| Parent(s) | Stephen Friedman |
David Benioff (born David Friedman; September 25, 1970) is an American novelist, screenwriter and television producer. He is the co-creator and showrunner of the widely acclaimed award-winning HBO series Game of Thrones.
Contents
Early life
Benioff was born David Friedman in New York City, to a Jewish family.[1] He is the son of Barbara (Benioff) and Stephen Friedman, who is a former head of Goldman Sachs.[2] He is a distant cousin of Marc Benioff.[3] As an adult, he changed his last name to Benioff, his mother's maiden name, to avoid confusion with other writers named David Friedman.[4] He is the youngest of three children. His family is of German Jewish and Russian Jewish descent.[citation needed]
He is an alumnus of The Collegiate School and a Dartmouth College alumnus. While at Dartmouth College, he was a member of Phi Delta Alpha Fraternity and the Sphinx Senior Society. At age 22, he worked as a club bouncer and then became a high school English teacher at Poly Prep in Brooklyn, New York City. Additionally, he attended the University of California Irvine and Trinity College Dublin, and received a Master of Fine Arts degree in the creative writing program.
Writing career
While working as a high school English teacher, he wrote the book The 25th Hour, and later adapted it into a screenplay, which was filmed starring Edward Norton and directed by Spike Lee.[1] He then wrote a collection of short stories titled When the Nines Roll Over (And Other Stories) in 2004.
Benioff drafted a screenplay of the mythological epic Troy (2004) for which Warner Bros pictures paid him $2.5 million.[citation needed] He also wrote the script for the psychological thriller Stay (2005), which was directed by Marc Forster and starred Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts. His screenplay for The Kite Runner (2007), adapted from the novel of the same name, marked his second collaboration with director Marc Forster. He was hired in 2004 to write the screenplay for the X-Men spin-off X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), and worked on the script for three years.
In 2008, his second novel, City of Thieves was published. He has been[when?] working on an adapted screenplay of the Charles R. Cross biography of Kurt Cobain but as of 2010 the screenplay has not been used.[5] He is also working with D.B. Weiss as executive producer, showrunner and writer on Game of Thrones, HBO's adaptation of the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series by George R.R. Martin.
On April 10, 2014, Benioff announced he and D.B. Weiss had taken on their first feature film project to write, produce and direct Dirty White Boys, a novel by Pulitzer prize-winning[6] author Stephen Hunter.[7]
Personal life
On September 30, 2006, Benioff married actress Amanda Peet in New York City.[8] Their first child, daughter Frances Pen, was born in 2007.[9] Their second child, daughter Molly June, was born in 2010.[10] In 2014, the couple welcomed another child, a son named Henry.[11]
Books
- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Plume; Reissue edition (January 29, 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN 0-452-28295-0
When the Nines Roll Over (and Other Stories)
- Hardcover: 223 pages
- Publisher: Viking Books (August 19, 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN 0-670-03339-1
- Hardcover: 281 pages
- Publisher: Viking Books (May 15, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN 0-670-01870-8
Screenplays
- 25th Hour (2002)
- Troy (2004)
- Stay (2005)
- The Kite Runner (2007)
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
- Brothers (2009)
- Game of Thrones (2011–present, 35 episodes)
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2013, 1 episode)
In development
- Heavier Than Heaven (2010)
References
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- David Benioff at the Internet Movie Database
- Works by David Benioff at Open LibraryLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- David Benioff at Authortrek.com
- Excerpt from City of Thieves
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- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Debra Kamin, "The Jewish legacy behind ‘Game of Thrones’," The Times of Israel, May 20, 2014.
- ↑ "Deaths Benioff, Florence," New York Times, August 28, 2000.
- ↑ http://www.businessinsider.com/how-these-famous-benioffs-are-related-2015-4
- ↑ William Alden, "Former Goldman Chief Walks Among Warriors and Dragons," DealBook, March 19, 2014.
- ↑ http://www.mtv.com/news/1635411/kurt-cobain-biopic-in-the-works-16-years-after-his-death/
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ http://www.deadline.com/2014/04/game-of-thrones-david-benioff-d-b-weiss-plan-dirty-white-boys-as-first-feature
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- Pages with reference errors
- Pages using infobox person with unknown parameters
- Articles with hCards
- Articles with unsourced statements from March 2014
- Articles with unsourced statements from July 2010
- Vague or ambiguous time from November 2012
- Commons category link from Wikidata
- Articles with Open Library links
- 1970 births
- 21st-century American novelists
- Alumni of Trinity College, Dublin
- American fantasy writers
- American male novelists
- American people of Russian-Jewish descent
- American schoolteachers
- American male screenwriters
- Collegiate School (New York) alumni
- Dartmouth College alumni
- Living people
- Television producers from New York
- University of California, Irvine alumni
- Writers from New York City
- 21st-century American writers
- Jewish American dramatists and playwrights
- Jewish American writers
- American people of German-Jewish descent
- American television producers
- American television writers
- American television directors
- Showrunners
- Game of Thrones (TV series)
- Male television writers
- American male dramatists and playwrights
- Primetime Emmy Award winners
