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| Birth Name(s) : Albert Brooks |
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Full Albert Brooks Biography
Albert Brooks (born July 22, 1947) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor, writer, comedian and director.
Brooks was born Albert Lawrence Einstein in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, the son of Thelma Leeds (née Goodman), a singer and actress, and Harry Parke (né Einstein), a radio comedian who performed on Eddie Cantor's radio program and was known as Parkyarkarkus. His brothers are comedic actor Bob Einstein, better known by his stage name "Super Dave Osborne" and Cliff Einstein, a partner and longtime chief creative officer at the Los Angeles ad agency Dailey & Associates. Brooks is Jewish and attended Beverly Hills High School. Brooks grew up among show business royalty in southern California, attending high school with Richard Dreyfuss and Rob Reiner.
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 that 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:
- ad:10/11/75 h:George Carlin - unlikely news items
- ad:10/18/75 h:Paul Simon - failed Candid Camera stunts & home movies
- ad:10/25/75 h:Rob Reiner - heart surgery
- ad:11/8/75 h:Candice Bergen - upcoming season
- ad:12/13/75 h:Richard Pryor / Gil Scott-Heron - sick
- ad:1/9/76 h:Elliott Gould / Anne Murray - audience test screening
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. In an interview, Brooks mentioned a conversation he'd had with Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader, in which Schrader said that Brooks' character was the only one in the movie that he couldn't "understand" -- a remark that Brooks found amusing, as the movie's anti-hero was a psychotic loner.
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.
Brooks's Defending Your Life (1991) placed his lead character in the afterlife, put on trial to justify his human fears and thus 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 tensions between him and 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 received positive reviews for his portrayal of a dying retail store owner who befriends disillusioned teen Leelee Sobieski in My First Mister (2001). Brooks has appeared as a guest voice on The Simpsons five times during its run (always under the name A. Brooks), and is described as the best guest star in the show's history by IGN, particularly for his role as supervillain Hank Scorpio in the episode "You Only Move Twice". 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.
In 2007, he continued his long term collaboration with The Simpsons by voicing Russ Cargill, the film's main antagonist, in The Simpsons Movie.
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). |
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