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| Birth Name(s) : David E. Kelley |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Partner:
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| Profession:
Actor |
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Full David E. Kelley Biography
Born in Waterville, Maine, raised in Belmont, Massachusetts and attended the Belmont Hill School. Kelley was the son of a hockey coach and played the game himself. He was captain of the team at Princeton University, from which he graduated in 1979 with a degree in politics.
He graduated with a law degree from Boston University where he wrote comedy sketches for the annual follies. He began working for a Boston law firm, mostly dealing with real estate and minor criminal cases. In 1983, while considering it only a hobby, Kelley began writing a screenplay, a legal thriller, which was optioned in 1986 and later became the Judd Nelson feature film From the Hip in 1987.
In 1986, Steven Bochco was searching for writers with a law background for his new NBC legal series, L.A. Law. His agent sent him Kelley's movie script for From the Hip. Enthusiastic, Bochco made him a writer and story editor for the show. During this first year, Kelley kept his law office in Boston as a hedge. However, his involvement in the show only expanded. In the second year, he became executive story editor and co-producer. Finally, in 1989, Bochco stepped away from the series making Kelley the executive producer. While executive producer, Kelley received two Emmys for Outstanding Writing in a Dramatic Series and the show received the award for Outstanding Drama Series for both years. For the first five seasons he was involved with the show, he wrote or co-wrote two out of three episodes. Kelley left after the fifth season in 1991 and ratings began to fall. As Newsday's TV critic wrote, "The difference between good and bad L.A. Law ... was David Kelley." Midway through the sixth season, both Bochco and Kelley were brought in as creative consultants after the show received bad press about its decline in quality.
By 1992, after co-creating Doogie Howser, M.D. with his mentor Bochco, Kelley formed his own production company, David E Kelley Productions, making a three-series deal with CBS. Its first creation, Picket Fences, airing in 1992 and influenced by Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure, focused on the police department in the quirky town of Rome, Wisconsin. Kelley took on the role of writing most of the episodes for the first three years. The show was critically acclaimed but never found a sizable audience. Picket Fences went on for four years, receiving a total of 14 Emmy awards including back-to-back Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series for its first and second seasons.
During the first two years of the series, Kelley was the sole full-time writer. He felt that, at first, the show creator can best flesh out the characters in a "voice-specific show." Later, the writing staff would grow to 10, most with law degrees. By the fifth season, he worked on the final script and was generally not on the set during filming.
In 2003, due to sagging ratings, ABC cut Kelley's budget in half for the eighth and final season. He responded by firing most of the cast and hiring James Spader for the role of Alan Shore, who the New York Times described as "a lecherous, twisted antitrust lawyer with a breezy disregard for ethics." The final episodes of The Practice were focused on introducing the new characters from his next show, Boston Legal.
Kelley, using a heavy metal Bic ballpoint and yellow legal pad, writes his first drafts longhand. He easily churns out scripts in two to four days, initially working without collaboration, finding it faster and easier than trying to explain what he wants to others.
Kelley often uses regular actors from older shows in newer shows, and vice versa. For example, Anthony Heald and Rene Auberjonois both played judges on The Practice, and both went on to be regular cast members in later shows (Heald on Boston Public as a vice-principal and Auberjonois on Boston Legal as a partner at a law firm).
Besides his first film, From the Hip which received poor reviews, Kelley wrote and produced three other films. 1996's To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, a romance, co-starring his wife, Michelle Pfeiffer, received tepid critical and box office reception. In 1999, came two films: Lake Placid, a unique combination of suspense, horror and comedy, and Mystery, Alaska, about a fictional small-town ice hockey team that plays a game against the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League. Neither movie did well with either the critics or the audience.
Writer, story editor, executive story editor, supervising producer, co-producer, executive producer, creative consultant
Shared with Bob Breech, Jeffrey Kramer, Christina Musrey, Jonathan Pontell, Ed Redlich, Gary M. Strangis, Pamela Wisne
Shared with Steven Bochco, Terry Louise Fisher, Phillip M. Goldfarb, Scott Goldstein, Gregory Hoblit, Rick Wallace |
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