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Alan Ball is a Actor, Director, Scriptwriter and Co-Producer American born on 13 may 1957 at Atlanta (USA)

Alan Ball

Alan Ball
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Nationality USA
Birth 13 may 1957 (66 years) at Atlanta (USA)
Awards Primetime Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award

Alan E. Ball (born May 13, 1957) is an American writer, director, and producer for television, film, and theatre. He is particularly notable for writing American Beauty, True Blood and for creating Six Feet Under, work which earned him an Academy Award, an Emmy, and awards from the Writers, Directors, and Producers Guilds.

Biography

Early life
Ball was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to Frank and Mary Ball, an aircraft inspector and a homemaker. He attended high school in Marietta, and went on to attend the University of Georgia and Florida State University, from which he graduated in 1980 with a degree in theater arts. After college, he began work as a playwright at the General Nonsense Theater Company in Sarasota, Florida.


Film and television career

Ball broke into television as a writer and story editor on the situation comedies Grace Under Fire and Cybill.

Ball has written two films, American Beauty (1999) and Towelhead (2007), the latter of which he also produced and directed. He is also the creator, writer and executive producer of the HBO drama series Six Feet Under and True Blood. He was showrunner for True Blood for its first five seasons.

In 2010 Ball began work on a television adaptation of the crime noir novel The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston, to be titled All Signs of Death. In December 2010, after several months of pre-production, HBO cancelled production on All Signs of Death.


Personal life
Ball has discussed his Buddhist faith in numerous interviews, noting how it has influenced his film making. In an interview with Amazon.com, Ball commented on the iconic scene in American Beauty with the plastic bag, stating, "I had an encounter with a plastic bag! And I didn't have a video camera, like Ricky does... There's a Buddhist notion of the miraculous within the mundane, and I think we certainly live in a culture that encourages us not to look for that." Ball has also discussed how his Buddhism has shaped themes in Six Feet Under and True Blood which he has substantially contributed to.

Ball is gay and has been called "a strong voice for [the] LGBT community". In 2008 he made Out magazine's annual list of the 100 most impressive gay men and women.

Best films

American Beauty (1999)
(Writer)

Usually with

Thomas Newman
Thomas Newman
(2 films)
Bruce Cohen
Bruce Cohen
(1 films)
Eamonn Roche
Eamonn Roche
(1 films)
Ted Hope
Ted Hope
(1 films)
Lisa Catara
Lisa Catara
(1 films)
Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Alan Ball (4 films)

Display filmography as list

Actor

Showboy
Showboy (2002)
, 1h33
Genres Comedy, Comedy-drama, Documentary
Actors Whoopi Goldberg, Alan Ball
Rating56% 2.80392.80392.80392.80392.8039
The film, a mockumentary that we are meant to believe is real, features around real-life screenwriter Taylor. Taylor is solicited by director Heymann to be the subject in a British television documentary series about British writers working in Hollywood. On the first day of filming this documentary, Taylor is fired from his real-life job as a screenwriter on the dramatic television series Six Feet Under. He is unaware that the documentary crew knows this has occurred.

Director

Towelhead
Towelhead (2008)
, 2h4
Directed by Alan Ball
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Black comedy
Themes Films about families, Films about sexuality
Actors Aaron Eckhart, Toni Collette, Maria Bello, Peter Macdissi, Summer Bishil, Carrie Preston
Rating68% 3.445643.445643.445643.445643.44564
Set in 1990 amidst the Kuwait War of 1990-91, Towelhead tells the coming-of-age story of a 13-year-old Lebanese American girl named Jasira (Summer Bishil). She first lives with her mother in Syracuse, New York, but when her mother's live-in boyfriend helps Jasira shave her pubic hair, her mother sends Jasira to live with her old-fashioned and domineering Lebanese father Rifat (Peter Macdissi) in suburban Houston, Texas. Jasira is alienated from her father: he is strict, does not allow her to use tampons, and prefers spending time with his new girlfriend, Thena; yet she experiences a sexual awakening there, sparked in part by the adult magazines she finds when baby-sitting the next-door neighbor boy Zack Vuoso (Chase Ellison), son of Travis Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart). While Jasira is home alone one night, Mr. Vuoso comes over to retrieve one of his magazines and he ends up raping her. She befriends a classmate, Thomas Bradley (Eugene Jones), eventually becoming sexually active with him. Mr. Vuoso becomes jealous of Jasira's relationship with Thomas and, pretending he has to go to Iraq the next morning, he rapes Jasira. When Rifat finds one of Mr. Vuoso's adult magazines at his house, he beats Jasira, and she seeks refuge at the home of Melina (Toni Collette) and her husband, Gil, neighbors that were aware of Mr. Vuoso's inappropriate behavior from the beginning. Eventually, Jasira reveals that she was raped by Mr. Vuoso, and he is arrested.

Scriptwriter

Beauty
Beauty (2008)
, 2h2
Genres Drama
Actors Kumiko Asō, Hisashi Igawa

Film is set in a small village of Ina (伊那) district, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, in the 1930s. Hanji, a young boy, sees the performance of a kabuki(歌舞伎) for the first time as a dedication event in the village. He is fascinated by the performance of Yukio, a character as young as Hanji, who dances as "Tenryu Koishibuki".
Towelhead
Towelhead (2008)
, 2h4
Directed by Alan Ball
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Black comedy
Themes Films about families, Films about sexuality
Actors Aaron Eckhart, Toni Collette, Maria Bello, Peter Macdissi, Summer Bishil, Carrie Preston
Rating68% 3.445643.445643.445643.445643.44564
Set in 1990 amidst the Kuwait War of 1990-91, Towelhead tells the coming-of-age story of a 13-year-old Lebanese American girl named Jasira (Summer Bishil). She first lives with her mother in Syracuse, New York, but when her mother's live-in boyfriend helps Jasira shave her pubic hair, her mother sends Jasira to live with her old-fashioned and domineering Lebanese father Rifat (Peter Macdissi) in suburban Houston, Texas. Jasira is alienated from her father: he is strict, does not allow her to use tampons, and prefers spending time with his new girlfriend, Thena; yet she experiences a sexual awakening there, sparked in part by the adult magazines she finds when baby-sitting the next-door neighbor boy Zack Vuoso (Chase Ellison), son of Travis Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart). While Jasira is home alone one night, Mr. Vuoso comes over to retrieve one of his magazines and he ends up raping her. She befriends a classmate, Thomas Bradley (Eugene Jones), eventually becoming sexually active with him. Mr. Vuoso becomes jealous of Jasira's relationship with Thomas and, pretending he has to go to Iraq the next morning, he rapes Jasira. When Rifat finds one of Mr. Vuoso's adult magazines at his house, he beats Jasira, and she seeks refuge at the home of Melina (Toni Collette) and her husband, Gil, neighbors that were aware of Mr. Vuoso's inappropriate behavior from the beginning. Eventually, Jasira reveals that she was raped by Mr. Vuoso, and he is arrested.
American Beauty, 2h2
Directed by Sam Mendes
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Romance
Themes Films about families, Films about sexuality, LGBT-related films, LGBT-related films, Films about virginity, LGBT-related film
Actors Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Chris Cooper
Roles Writer
Rating80% 4.0205754.0205754.0205754.0205754.020575
Lester Burnham is a middle-aged magazine writer who despises his job. His wife, Carolyn, is an ambitious real estate broker; their sixteen-year-old daughter, Jane, abhors her parents and has low self-esteem. The Burnhams' new neighbors are retired United States Marine Corps Colonel Frank Fitts and his introverted wife, Barbara. Their teenage son, Ricky, obsessively films his surroundings with a camcorder, collecting hundreds of recordings on video tapes in his bedroom. He also secretly deals marijuana, using a job as a part-time bar caterer to help keep it secret from his father. Having been previously forced into a military academy and a psychiatric hospital, Ricky is subjected by Col. Fitts to a strict disciplinarian lifestyle. Jim Olmeyer and Jim Berkley, a gay couple who live nearby, welcome the family to the neighborhood; Col. Fitts later reveals his homophobia when angrily discussing the incident with Ricky.

Producer

Towelhead
Towelhead (2008)
, 2h4
Directed by Alan Ball
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Black comedy
Themes Films about families, Films about sexuality
Actors Aaron Eckhart, Toni Collette, Maria Bello, Peter Macdissi, Summer Bishil, Carrie Preston
Roles Producer
Rating68% 3.445643.445643.445643.445643.44564
Set in 1990 amidst the Kuwait War of 1990-91, Towelhead tells the coming-of-age story of a 13-year-old Lebanese American girl named Jasira (Summer Bishil). She first lives with her mother in Syracuse, New York, but when her mother's live-in boyfriend helps Jasira shave her pubic hair, her mother sends Jasira to live with her old-fashioned and domineering Lebanese father Rifat (Peter Macdissi) in suburban Houston, Texas. Jasira is alienated from her father: he is strict, does not allow her to use tampons, and prefers spending time with his new girlfriend, Thena; yet she experiences a sexual awakening there, sparked in part by the adult magazines she finds when baby-sitting the next-door neighbor boy Zack Vuoso (Chase Ellison), son of Travis Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart). While Jasira is home alone one night, Mr. Vuoso comes over to retrieve one of his magazines and he ends up raping her. She befriends a classmate, Thomas Bradley (Eugene Jones), eventually becoming sexually active with him. Mr. Vuoso becomes jealous of Jasira's relationship with Thomas and, pretending he has to go to Iraq the next morning, he rapes Jasira. When Rifat finds one of Mr. Vuoso's adult magazines at his house, he beats Jasira, and she seeks refuge at the home of Melina (Toni Collette) and her husband, Gil, neighbors that were aware of Mr. Vuoso's inappropriate behavior from the beginning. Eventually, Jasira reveals that she was raped by Mr. Vuoso, and he is arrested.
American Beauty, 2h2
Directed by Sam Mendes
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Comedy, Comedy-drama, Romance
Themes Films about families, Films about sexuality, LGBT-related films, LGBT-related films, Films about virginity, LGBT-related film
Actors Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Chris Cooper
Roles Co-Producer
Rating80% 4.0205754.0205754.0205754.0205754.020575
Lester Burnham is a middle-aged magazine writer who despises his job. His wife, Carolyn, is an ambitious real estate broker; their sixteen-year-old daughter, Jane, abhors her parents and has low self-esteem. The Burnhams' new neighbors are retired United States Marine Corps Colonel Frank Fitts and his introverted wife, Barbara. Their teenage son, Ricky, obsessively films his surroundings with a camcorder, collecting hundreds of recordings on video tapes in his bedroom. He also secretly deals marijuana, using a job as a part-time bar caterer to help keep it secret from his father. Having been previously forced into a military academy and a psychiatric hospital, Ricky is subjected by Col. Fitts to a strict disciplinarian lifestyle. Jim Olmeyer and Jim Berkley, a gay couple who live nearby, welcome the family to the neighborhood; Col. Fitts later reveals his homophobia when angrily discussing the incident with Ricky.