- Born
- Birth nameBrian Thomas Grazer
- Height5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
- Emmy and Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer has been making movies and television programs for more than 25 years. As both a writer and producer, he has been personally nominated for four Academy Awards, and in 2002 won the Best Picture Oscar for A Beautiful Mind (2001). In addition to winning three other Academy Awards, "A Beautiful Mind" also won four Golden Globe Awards (including Best Motion Picture Drama) and earned Grazer the first annual Awareness Award from the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign.
Over the years, Grazer's films and TV shows have been nominated for 43 Oscars and 198 Emmys. At the same time his movies have generated more than $15 billion in worldwide theatrical, music and video grosses. Reflecting this combination of commercial and artistic achievement, the Producers Guild of America honored Grazer with the David O. Selznick Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. His accomplishments have also been recognized by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which in 1998 added Grazer to the short list of producers with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On March 6, 2003. ShoWest celebrated Grazer's success by honoring him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. On November 14, 2005, Grazer was honored in Los Angeles by the Fulfillment Fund. In May 2007 he was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World." On January 24 Grazer, along with his partner Ron Howard, was honored with the Milestone Award by the Producers Guild of America.
In addition to "A Beautiful Mind", Grazer's films include Apollo 13 (1995), for which Grazer won the Producers Guild's Darryl F. Zanuck Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Picture of 1995; and Splash (1984), which he co-wrote as well as produced and for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay of 1986.
Grazer also produced the film adaptation of Peter Morgan's critically acclaimed play "Frost/Nixon" (Frost/Nixon (2008)), directed by Ron Howard. The film was nominated for 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture, and was also nominated for The Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures by the PGA.
Grazer also produced Angels & Demons (2009), the adaptation of Dan Brown's bast-selling novel, and Robin Hood (2010), directed by Ridley Scott and with Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett and Max von Sydow.
Some more of Grazer's feature film credits include the drama The Changeling (2006), directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Angelina Jolie; the Ridley Scott-directed drama American Gangster (2007), staring Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington; The Da Vinci Code (2006), the film adaptation of Dan Brown's international best-seller, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Oscar-winner Ron Howard; the tense drama The Inside Man (2005), directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen and Jodie Foster; Flightplan (2005); Cinderella Man (2005); the Sundance acclaimed documentary Inside Deep Throat (2005); the TV series Friday Night Lights (2006); 8 Mile (2002); Blue Crush (2002); Intolerable Cruelty (2003); How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000); The Nutty Professor (1996); Liar Liar (1997); Ransom (1996); My Girl (1991); Backdraft (1991); Kindergarten Cop (1990); Parenthood (1989); Clean and Sober (1988); and Spies Like Us (1985).
Grazer's television productions include Fox's hit Golden Globe and Emmy award winning Best Drama Series 24 (2001), NBC's Peabody Award-winning series "Friday Night Lights" and Fox's Lie to Me (2009), starring Tim Roth, which premiered in January 2009. He is also working on additional television projects including Parenthood (2010), based on his 1989 film, and Wonderland (2000), directed by Peter Berg. His additional television credits include Fox's Emmy award winning-Best Comedy Arrested Development (2003), CBS' Shark (2006), NBC's Miss Match (2003), WB's Felicity (1998), ABC's Sports Night (1998), as well as HBO's From the Earth to the Moon (1998), for which he won the Emmy for Outstanding Mini-Series.
Grazer began his career as a producer, developing television projects. It was while he was executive-producing TV pilots for Paramount Pictures in the early 1980s that Grazer first met Ron Howard, soon to become his friend and business partner. Their collaboration began in 1985 with the hit comedies Night Shift (1982) and Splash (1984), and in 1986 the two founded Imagine Entertainment, which they continue to run together as chairmen.- IMDb mini biography by: A. Nonymous
- SpousesVeronica A Smiley(February 20, 2016 - present)Gigi Levangie(September 20, 1997 - May 21, 2009) (divorced, 2 children)Corki Grazer(May 23, 1982 - June 2, 1992) (divorced, 2 children)Theresa Mckay-Roberts(March 16, 1972 - July 6, 1979) (divorced)
- Children
- RelativesJack Dylan Grazer(Niece or Nephew)Bernard L. Kowalski(Aunt or Uncle)
- Spiky hairdo
- Took Imagine Entertainment public, then decided he and partner Ron Howard were better off as full-time filmmakers, not full-time Wall Street executives.
- Attended and graduated from USC School of Cinema-Television (1974).
- Was a surfer before he became a producer.
- Was first introduced to Deep Throat (1972) through his grandmother in 1972. At age 60, she was curious about the movie with all the talk about this and decided to go see the movie with her husband.
- A noted germaphobe, Grazer often opens doors with his left hand - or uses a paper towel - and washes as soon as possible after greeting a stranger.
- Pornography is very important and is about the physicalization of a philosophy, but I think that the birth of how trends happen or how barriers get broken down is more interesting.
- I only make movies that are interesting to me.
- I probably should have a brand, but I think you can't get the best artists to work for you if you're branded. I get the trade-off, and I really would like to be more famous for my work, get more credit for my achievements. We all want more of that. But on the other hand, if you get too big--like it says in American Gangster (2007)'--success is your enemy.
- I like learning stuff. The more information you can get about a person or a subject, the more you can pour into a potential project. I made a decision to do different things. I want to do things that have a better chance of being thought of as original. I do everything I can to disrupt my comfort zone.
- [on criticisms that '24' made Americans more amenable to torture] I don't think we made it OK at all. I think that we just stated that it was going on. Ultimately, Jack Bauer was a wish-fulfillment character - the guy we wished we could be when we saw political injustice or terrorism, either in our country or other countries.
- Tower Heist (2011) - $2,500,000
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