Perry, Tyler 1969- (Emmitt Perry, Jr.)

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Perry, Tyler 1969- (Emmitt Perry, Jr.)

PERSONAL:

Born September 13, 1969, in New Orleans, LA; son of Emmitt (a contractor) and Maxine Perry. Education: Earned a General Equivalency Diploma (GED).

CAREER:

Writer, playwright, producer, director, and actor. I Know I've Been Changed, 1998, Woman, Thou Art Loosed, 1999, I Can't Do Bad All by Myself, 2000, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, 2001, Madea's Family Reunion, 2002, Madea's Class Reunion, 2003, Madea Goes to Jail, 2005, producer, director, actor, and playwright. Madea's Family Reunion (film), Lions Gate Films, 2006, writer, director and actor; Daddy's Little Girls (film), Lions Gate Films, 2007, writer and director. Black Movie Awards, Turner Network Television (TNT), 2006, host. Author of sitcom, House of Payne, Turner Broadcasting System (TBS), 2006—. Tyler Perry Studios, Atlanta, GA, owner, 2006—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Helen Hayes Award nomination, Outstanding Lead Actor, Non-Resident Production, 2001; Quill Award, 2006, for Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life; Trailblazer Award, Beverly Hills/Hollywood NAACP, 2006.

WRITINGS:

FICTION

Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life, Riverhead Books (New York, NY), 2006.

PLAYS

I Know I've Been Changed, 1998.

(With T.D. Jakes) Woman, Thou Art Loosed, 1999.

I Can't Do Bad All by Myself, 2000.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman, 2001.

(With T.D. Jakes) Behind Closed Doors, 2001.

Madea's Family Reunion, T. Perry (Fairburn, GA), 2001.

Madea's Class Reunion, 2003.

Madea Goes to Jail, 2005.

A Jazz Man's Blues, 2005.

Author of the screenplay for Diary of a Mad Black Woman, 2005; author of Madea's Christmas Play, Trinity Broadcasting Network. Also author of plays Why Did I Get Married? and Meet the Browns. Author of screenplay, Daddy's Little Girls, 2007.

ADAPTATIONS:

Madea's Family Reunion was adapted for a feature film, directed by and starring Tyler Perry, Lions Gate Films, 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tyler Perry is an actor, producer, director, playwright, and author. Born in New Orleans, he survived early abuse from his father, numerous menial jobs, and even a period of homelessness before turning his life around with writing. Watching an episode of the Oprah show on television, he took to heart her advice for keeping a journal to get mentally healthy. His journal entries soon took the form of stories and plays, which he initially self-produced. The plays are "morality tales in which bad people get what's coming to them and good people triumph through faith," according to Brett Pulley, writing in Forbes magazine. Perry's trademark character for many of his plays is Madea, a large, elderly black woman in a bad wig (played in drag by Perry) who is a symbolic stand-in for African American matriarchal wisdom and humor. Beginning in the late 1990s, Perry produced a series of plays featuring Madea (a Southern term for "grandmother" or "mother dear")—Madea's Family Reunion, Madea's Class Reunion, Madea Goes to Jail—that revitalized small urban theater across the nation. In 2005 an earlier play, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, debuted as a feature film which, despite general critical failure, managed to become a major box-office success. This was followed by the 2006 film of Madea's Family Reunion, directed by and starring the multitalented Perry. Pulley described Perry's success before he made the movie: "He had spent a decade writing and staging plays across the nation, selling more than one hundred million dollars in tickets, thirty million dollars in videos of his shows and an estimated twenty million dollars in merchandise. His e-mail list of devoted fans exceeds four hundred thousand, and the three hundred live shows he produces each year are attended by an average of thirty-five thousand people a week." With his Hollywood success, several more of his plays were optioned for filming. Perry opened his own movie and acting studio in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2006, and also debuted a television sitcom that same year, House of Payne.

In 2006 Perry also became a published author with his best-selling title, Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life. Written in the voice of his creation, Madea, the book, a series of comic monologues, "ad- dresses everything from romance, marriage and sex to ‘acting White,’ child-rearing and diet," according to a Jet contributor. Writing in Entertainment Weekly, Margeaux Watson noted that the "fictional … matriarch" fills the book "with sassy musings." Watson felt fans of Perry's plays and movies would be "tickled" by the "wicked wisdom" Madea serves up in this debut book. A contributor for Publishers Weekly noted that Perry has marched a "marijuana-smoking, pistol-packing, trash-talking matron through a series of hit gospel plays and films," and that Madea's translation to book form presented a "fresh compilation of homespun advice." Similar praise came from Booklist reviewer Vanessa Bush, who observed that despite the "silliness that is part of the character [there] is some sound advice on life."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 54, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 2006.

Newsmakers, Issue 1, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 2006.

PERIODICALS

American Theatre, April, 2006, " Beverly Hills/Hollywood NAACP," p. 17.

Booklist, May 15, 2006, Vanessa Bush, review of Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life, p. 16.

Daily Variety, February 27, 2006, Joe Leydon, review of Madea's Family Reunion (film), p. 6; March 16, 2006, Pamela McClintock, "Lionsgate Gets Girl," p. 1; October 12, 2006, Steven Zeitchik, "Perry Plucks Quills," p. 5; November 17, 2006, Pamela McClintock, "Lionsgate to Produce Next Two Perry Films," p. 72.

Ebony, January, 2004, Zondra Hughes, "How Tyler Perry Rose from Homelessness to a $5 Million Mansion," p. 86; May, 2006, review of Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, p. 30.

Entertainment Weekly, March 11, 2005, Gregory Kirschling, "Mad Props," p. 12; March 3, 2006, Neil Drumming, "The Gospel according to Tyler Perry," p. 70; March 10, 2006, Owen Gleiberman, review of Madea's Family Reunion (film), p. 44; April 14, 2006, Margeaux Watson, review of Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, p. 92; May 26, 2006, Paul Katz, review of House of Payne, p. 97.

Essence, March, 2006, Pamela K. Johnson, "Diary of a Brilliant Black Man," p. 120; May, 2006, Cori Murray, review of Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, p. 80; July, 2006, Lisa Helem, "The King of All Media," p. 70.

Forbes, September 15, 2005, Brett Pulley, "A Showbiz Whiz," p. 75.

Hollywood Reporter, March 1, 2005, Nicole Sperling, "Black Woman on Verge," p. 3; February 24, 2006, Andy Eiser, "Family Affair," p. 64; February 27, 2006, Sheri Linden, review of Madea's Family Reunion, p. 6; September 14, 2006, Nicole Sperling, "Perry Opens Atlanta Studio," p. 4.

Jet, December 1, 2003, Margena A. Christian, "Tyler Perry: Meet the Man behind the Urban Theater Character Madea," p. 60; February 27, 2006, Margena A. Christian, "Tyler Perry Sky Is the Limit for Madea with New Movie, Upcoming Book and TV Show," p. 32; March 27, 2006, "Family Inspiration," p. 44; May 15, 2006, "Tyler Perry's First Book Debuts as Bestseller," p. 64.

New York Times Book Review, April 30, 2006, Dwight Garner, "TBR: Inside the List," p. 22.

O: The Oprah Magazine, March, 2006, "Aha! The Flash of Understanding That Can Change Your Life," p. 212.

People, August 9, 2004, Ethel M. Johnson, "From Rags to Riches," p. 101.

PR Newswire, April 21, 2006, "Tyler Perry, the #1 Box Office Success, Is Now The Nation's #1 Author."

Publishers Weekly, March 21, 2005, John F. Baker, "All Out for Tyler," p. 12; April 18, 2005, John F. Baker, "Madea's Happy Landing," p. 14; February 20, 2006, review of Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, p. 152.

Time, February 20, 2006, Rebecca Winters Keegan, "People," p. 71.