Alan Ball | |
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Born | Alan Erwin Ball May 13, 1957 Marietta, Georgia, U.S. |
Education | University of Georgia, Florida State University |
Occupation(s) | Screenwriter, director, producer |
Notable work | American Beauty (1999) Six Feet Under (2001–2005) True Blood (2008–2014) Banshee (2013–2016) |
Television | Grace Under Fire , Cybill |
Partner | Peter Macdissi |
Alan Erwin Ball (born May 13, 1957) [1] is an American writer and director for film and television.
Ball wrote the screenplay for American Beauty, for which he earned an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He also created the HBO series Six Feet Under and True Blood , for which he earned an Emmy as well as awards from the Writers, Directors, and Producers Guilds of America. He was an executive producer on the Cinemax television series Banshee . He also wrote and directed the films Towelhead (2007) and Uncle Frank (2020).
Ball was born in Marietta, Georgia to Frank and Mary Ball, both of whom were aircraft inspectors. His older sister, Mary Ann, was killed in a car accident when Ball was 13; he was in the passenger seat at the time. [2] He attended high school in Marietta and went to college at the University of Georgia and Florida State University. Ball graduated from Florida State in 1980 with a degree in theater arts. [3] [4]
After college, Ball began work as a playwright at the General Nonsense Theater Company in Sarasota, Florida. [5]
Ball broke into television as a writer and story editor on the sitcoms Grace Under Fire and Cybill . [6]
Ball wrote two film scripts that ended up in development hell prior to American Beauty (1999). [7] He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for American Beauty. He has written two further films: Towelhead (2007) and Uncle Frank (2020), 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 . [8] Ball was the showrunner for True Blood for its first five seasons. [9]
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. [10] [11] In December 2010, after several months of pre-production, HBO cancelled production. [12]
Ball was one of the executive producers of the Cinemax series Banshee . [13]
In July 2016, it was announced that Ball's family drama Here and Now had been ordered to series by HBO. [14] Starring Tim Robbins and Holly Hunter, [15] [16] the show was cancelled in April 2018 after one ten-episode season.
Ball has discussed his Buddhist faith in numerous interviews, noting how it has influenced his filmmaking. In an interview with Amazon.com, Ball commented on the plastic bag scene in American Beauty, 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." [17] Ball also discussed how his Buddhism shaped themes in Six Feet Under and True Blood . [18] [19]
Ball is gay and has been called "a strong voice for [the] LGBT community". [20] [21] In 2008 he made Out magazine's annual list of the 100 most impressive gay men and women. [22]
For his work in television and film, Ball has received critical acclaim and numerous awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, an Emmy a Golden Globe, and awards from the Writers, Directors, and Producers Guilds. [23]
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Title | Year | Credit | Notes |
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"The Road to Paris, Texas" | 1994 |
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"Grace vs. Wade" | 1994 | Writer | |
"A Night at the Opera" | 1995 | Writer | |
"Memphis Bound" | 1995 | Writer, with Marc Flanagan |
Title | Year | Credit | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
"Zing!" | 1995 | Teleplay, with Lee Aronsohn | |
"To Sir, with Lust" | 1996 | Writer | |
"Three Women and a Dummy" | 1996 | Writer | |
"Venice or Bust" | 1996 | Writer | |
"Buffalo Gals" | 1996 | Writer | |
"Name That Tune" | 1997 | Teleplay, with Michael Langworthy | |
"Mother's Day" | 1997 | Story | |
"Regarding Henry" | 1997 | Story | Season 4 premiere |
"Halloween" | 1997 | Teleplay, with Mark Hudis | |
"Where's a Harpoon When You Need One?" | 1997 | Teleplay, with Kim Friese | |
"Bakersfield" | 1998 | Story | |
"Oh Brother!" | 1998 | Teleplay, with Mark Hudis | |
"Dream Date" | 1998 | Story |
Title | Year | Credit | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
"Pilot" | 1999 | Writer | Series premiere |
"Good Pop, Bad Pop" | 1999 | Writer |
Title | Year | Credit | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
"Pilot" | 2001 |
| Series premiere |
"An Open Book" | 2001 | Writer | |
"Knock Knock" | 2001 |
| Season 1 finale |
"In The Game" | 2002 | Writer | Season 2 premiere |
"Someone Else's Eyes" | 2002 | Writer | |
"The Last Time" | 2002 | Director | Season 2 finale |
"Perfect Circles" | 2003 | Writer | Season 3 premiere |
"Nobody Sleeps" | 2003 | Writer, with Rick Cleveland | |
"I'm Sorry, I'm Lost" | 2003 | Director | Season 3 finale |
"Can I Come Up Now?" | 2004 | Writer | |
"Untitled" | 2004 | Director | Season 4 finale |
"Everyone's Waiting" | 2005 |
| Series finale |
Title | Year | Credit | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
"Strange Love" | 2008 |
| Series premiere |
"The First Taste" | 2008 | Writer | |
"Mine" | 2008 | Writer | |
"You'll Be the Death of Me" | 2008 | Director | Season 1 finale |
"Shake and Fingerpop" | 2009 | Writer | |
"Frenzy" | 2009 | Writer | |
"I Got a Right to Sing the Blues" | 2010 | Writer | |
"Evil is Going On" | 2010 | Writer | Season 3 finale |
"If You Love Me, Why Am I Dyin'?" | 2011 | Writer | |
"Spellbound" | 2011 | Writer | |
"Hopeless" | 2012 | Writer | |
"Save Yourself" | 2012 | Writer | Season 5 finale |
Title | Year | Credit | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
"Eleven Eleven" | 2018 |
| Series premiere |
"It's Coming" | 2018 | Writer | |
"It's Here" | 2018 | Writer |
Title | Year | Credit | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
American Beauty | 1999 |
| |
Towelhead | 2007 |
| |
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks | 2017 |
| Television film |
Uncle Frank | 2020 |
|
Title | Year | Credit | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Five Women Wearing the Same Dress | 1993 |
| [24] |
All That I Will Ever Be | 2007 |
| [24] |
Cinemax is an American pay television, cable, and satellite television network owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Developed as a companion "maxi-pay" service complementing the offerings shown on parent network Home Box Office (HBO) and initially focusing on recent and classic films upon its launch on August 1, 1980. Programming featured on Cinemax currently consists primarily of recent and older theatrically released motion pictures, and original action series, as well as documentaries and special behind-the-scenes featurettes.
Six Feet Under is an American drama television series created and produced by Alan Ball that premiered on the premium television network HBO on June 3, 2001, and ended on August 21, 2005, after five seasons consisting of 63 episodes. The show depicts the lives of the Fisher family, who run a funeral home in Los Angeles, along with their friends and lovers.
Thomas J. Pelphrey is an American actor. He is known for playing the roles of Jonathan Randall on the CBS television series Guiding Light, Mick Dante on the CBS television series As the World Turns, Kurt Bunker on the Cinemax television series Banshee, Ward Meachum on the Netflix series Iron Fist, Ben Davis on the Netflix series Ozark, Perry Abbott on the Prime Video series Outer Range, Don Crowder on the Max limited series Love & Death, Joe Mankiewicz in David Fincher's film Mank, and Jason Derek Brown in the true crime film American Murderer.
Ryan Christian Kwanten is an Australian actor and producer. He played Vinnie Patterson from 1997 to 2002 in the Australian soap opera Home and Away. After his stint ended, he joined the American teen drama series Summerland, portraying Jay Robertson. From 2008 to 2014, he played Jason Stackhouse in True Blood. From 2018 to 2019 he produced and starred in the crime drama series The Oath as Steve Hammond. In 2021 he starred in season one of the horror drama anthology series Them as George Bell. In 2022, he portrayed Thomas Weylin in Kindred, a series adaptation based on Octavia E. Butler's celebrated 1979 novel of the same name.
Nancy Oliver is an American playwright and screenwriter who is best known for her work on the successful TV series Six Feet Under. Oliver was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2008 for her debut screenplay, Lars and the Real Girl.
Michael Cuesta is an American film and television director, best known for his independent films, specially for having co-written and directed the 2001 film, L.I.E. He has directed and produced television series including Six Feet Under, Dexter, Blue Bloods and Homeland.
Angela Robinson is an American film and television director, screenwriter and producer. Outfest Fusion LGBTQ People of Color Film Festival awarded Robinson with the Fusion Achievement Award in 2013 for her contribution to LGBTQ+ media visibility.
David Schickler is an American screenwriter and author, most recently of the memoir The Dark Path, published by Riverhead Books in September 2013. He is the co-creator and an executive producer of the Cinemax television series Banshee, which premiered in 2013. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling short story collection Kissing in Manhattan (2001) and the nationally bestselling novel Sweet and Vicious (2004). He has written original and adapted scripts for Universal, Lions Gate, Sidney Kimmel and Wildwood Films.
Peter Macdissi is a Lebanese actor and producer. His filmography consists mostly of television work, most notably playing recurring character Olivier Castro-Staal on Alan Ball's HBO series Six Feet Under. In 2007, he appeared in Towelhead, a feature film written and directed by Ball, who is also his partner. Along with Ball, he is one of the executive producers of the Cinemax series Banshee.
True Blood is an American fantasy horror drama television series produced and created by Alan Ball. It is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries, a series of novels by Charlaine Harris.
"Strange Love" is the pilot episode of True Blood. The episode was written and directed by Alan Ball and originally aired in the United States on HBO on September 7, 2008. In the episode, Sookie Stackhouse meets vampire Bill Compton and saves him from vicious vampire drainers, while her best friend Tara becomes the new bartender at Sam Merlotte's bar and Sookie's brother Jason finds himself accused of murder. The episode received generally positive reviews from critics. It was rated TV-MA for Adult Content, Adult Language, Nudity, Strong Sexual Content, and Violence.
William Thomas “BillCompton” is a fictional vampire in The Southern Vampire Mysteries; a series of books by Charlaine Harris. He is introduced in the first novel of the series, Dead Until Dark and has appeared in every subsequent novel. In the television adaptation, True Blood, he was portrayed by the actor Stephen Moyer.
Rutina Wesley is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Tara Thornton on the HBO television series True Blood, and Nova Bordelon on OWN’s Queen Sugar.
Nelsan Ellis was an American actor. He achieved critical acclaim for his portrayal of Lafayette Reynolds in the HBO television series True Blood (2008–2014), for which he won a Satellite Award from the International Press Academy, among other accolades. He also starred as Shinwell Johnson in Elementary from 2016 to 2017, and played a variety of guest roles on television.
The first season of the American television drama series True Blood premiered on September 7, 2008 and concluded on November 23, 2008. It consists of 12 episodes, each running approximately 55 minutes in length and was, for the most part, based on the novel Dead Until Dark, the first entry in The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris. The story takes place in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana, two years after vampires have made their presence known to mankind, and follows telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse as she attempts to solve a series of murders that seem to be motivated by a hatred of vampires.
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Banshee is an American action television series created by Jonathan Tropper and David Schickler originally aired on the Cinemax network from January 11, 2013, to May 20, 2016, over four seasons, comprising a total of 38 episodes. Set in the small town of Banshee in Pennsylvania Amish country, the series' main character is an enigmatic ex-con who assumes the identity of Lucas Hood, the town's murdered sheriff, to hide from powerful crime lord Rabbit. Imposing his own brand of justice, Hood attempts to reconcile with his former lover, Rabbit's daughter Anastasia, who has herself adopted an assumed identity, married, and raised a family during Hood's incarceration. Hood struggles to maintain his new identity while still embracing crime alongside his partners Job and Sugar and coming into conflict with local kingpin Kai Proctor.
Lili Marie Simmons is an American actress and model known for her role as Rebecca Bowman in the Cinemax series Banshee (2013–2016).
Christopher James Coy is an American actor. He is known for portraying Calvin Bunker on Cinemax's Banshee, L.P. Everett on HBO's Treme, Martin on AMC's The Walking Dead, Jasper Baker on Prime Video’s The Peripheral, and Paul Hendrickson on HBO's The Deuce.
He is also openly gay & a strong voice for our LGBT community.
Ball has been lauded as a strong and significant voice for the American gay community.