Borowitz, Andy (Seth) 1958-

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BOROWITZ, Andy (Seth) 1958-

PERSONAL:

Born January 4, 1958, in Cleveland, OH; son of Albert Ira and Helen Blanche (Osterman) Borowitz. Education: Harvard, B.A., 1980.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Bruce Vinokour, Creative Artists Agency, 9830 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hillls, CA 90212. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, humorist, film and television producer. Regularly appears on CNN's American Morning and National Public Radio's Weekend Edition. Executive producer and creator of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 1990-96. Producer of motion pictures, including Pleasantville, New Line Cinema, 1998.

MEMBER:

Writers Guild, Harvard Club, Friar's Club, Screen Actors Guild, Players Club.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Jacob Wendell scholar, Harvard University, 1977; NAACP Image Award for The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Winner of five About.com Political Dot-Comedy awards.

WRITINGS:

(With Henry Beard and John Boswell) Rationalizations to Live By, illustrated by Roz Chast, Workman (New York, NY), 2000.

The Trillionaire Next Door: The Greedy Investor's Guide to Day Trading, HarperBusiness (New York, NY), 2000.

Who Moved My Soap?: The CEO's Guide to Surviving in Prison, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2003.

Governor Arnold: A Photodiary of His First 100 Days in Office, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

The Borowitz Report: The Big Book of Shockers, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to periodicals including Newsweek.com, New Yorker, New York Times, and Vanity Fair. Writer for television shows including Square Pegs, Central Broadcasting Company (CBS), 1982 and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, NBC, 1990.

SIDELIGHTS:

Andy Borowitz is known as a powerful Hollywood producer, a leading comic voice, a prolific screenwriter, and a gifted comedic writing teacher. According to the Greater Talent Network Web site, Borowitz began his career in show business at the age of thirteen. While studying at Harvard he wrote the Hasty Pudding Show and was president of the Harvard Lampoon. Borowitz has a long list of credentials including writing a daily column for his Web site, the Borowitz Report. He told an interviewer for Zulkey, "the great (or terrible) thing about the Borowitz Report is that through some insanity of my own I've committed myself to writing it five days a week." Borowitz is also the creator and executive producer of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air television sitcom, which ran from 1990-1996.

Borowitz has written three books of humor and has cowritten Rationalizations to Live By with Henry Beard and John Boswell. The Trillionaire Next Door: The Greedy Investor's Guide to Day Trading is a book poking fun at day-trading and dedicated to Oprah. The book features such advice as "when to buy, when to sell, and when to call Domino's." Borowitz illustrates the rules of becoming a trillionaire and each rule is followed by a real quote from a day trader. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly called The Trillionaire Next Door "an entertaining diversion."

According to a reviewer for Bookreporter.com, Who Moved My Soap?: The CEO's Guide to Surviving in Prison "is intended as a satirical guide for the CEO who finds himself going to prison." The book includes helpful hints such as "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Prisoners." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly observed, "Borowitz offers a Zagat-like guide to prison food" and claims "this slim but very funny release riffs on the inexhaustible genre of business books." Borowitz's 2004 release is Governor Arnold: A Photo-diary of His First 100 Days in Office, a book of pictures with fictious captions featuring the governor of California.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Publishers Weekly, June 5, 2000, review of The Trillionaire Next Door: The Greedy Investor's Guide to Day Trading, p. 82; May 12, 2003, review of Who Moved My Soap?: The CEO's Guide to Surviving in Prison, p 57.