Writing
Alan Ball
Born 1957-05-13 · Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Alan E. Ball is an American writer, director, actor and producer for film, theatre and television. He is particularly notable for writing American Beauty and True Blood and for creating Six Feet Under, work which earned him an Academy Award, an Emmy, and awards from the Writers, Directors, and Producers Guilds. Ball was born in Marietta, Georgia, to Frank and Mary Ball, an aircraft inspector and a homemaker. His older sister, Mary Ann, was killed in a car accident when Ball was 13; he was in the passenger seat at the time. He attended high school in Marietta, and went on to attend the University of Georgia and Florida State University, from which he graduated in 1980 with a degree in theater arts. After college, he began work as a playwright at the General Nonsense Theater Company in Sarasota, Florida. Ball broke into television as a writer and story editor on the situation comedies Grace Under Fire and Cybill. Ball has written two films, American Beauty (1999) and Towelhead (2007), 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. He was showrunner for True Blood for its first five seasons. 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. In December 2010, after several months of pre-production, HBO cancelled production on All Signs of Death. He is also one of the executive producers of the Cinemax series Banshee. In January 2015, it was announced that Ball's period musical drama Virtuoso had had a pilot ordered by HBO. The pilot will be executively produced by Elton John. Confirmed actors to be starring in the show include Peter Macdissi, Iva Babic, Francois Civil, Lindsay Farris, Nico Mirallegro and Alex Lawther. 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.
Acting credits
7.8A promotional short documentary on the making of the film American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball.
American Beauty: Look Closer...
2000
4.5A behind the scenes look at the making of simulated corpses for the TV series "Six Feet Under".
Anatomy of a Working Stiff
2004
8.7A eulogy for the groundbreaking HBO series.
Six Feet Under: In Memoriam
2005
Join some of the most talented legends of the Horror Film genre for discussion of what scared us before, and what's going to scare us next! The film is a dissection of the various sub-genres of horror, and where new creative scares might emerge.
The Future of Fear
2011
Behind the camera
8.0Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.
American Beauty
1999
7.3In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.
Uncle Frank
2020
7.3In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.
Uncle Frank
2020
7.3In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.
Uncle Frank
2020
6.2A young Arab-American girl struggles with her sexual obsession, a bigoted Army reservist, and her strict father during the Gulf War.
Towelhead
2008
6.2A young Arab-American girl struggles with her sexual obsession, a bigoted Army reservist, and her strict father during the Gulf War.
Towelhead
2008
6.2A young Arab-American girl struggles with her sexual obsession, a bigoted Army reservist, and her strict father during the Gulf War.
Towelhead
2008
NREntirely made in California, the film brings together 30 American and European actors in an epic which crosses the mythical territories of that cinematic land from Zabriskie Point to Mulholland Drive. California is revisited through the movie memories incarnated by the very presence of famous actors and actresses. "The American Tetralogy" is a way of staging reality which questions the fictional nature of the movies.
The American Tetralogy
2012
Centers on an inveterate twenty-something slacker who stumbles into a career as a crime scene cleaner, only to find himself entangled with a murder mystery, a femme fatale and the loose ends of his own past.
All Signs of Death
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Centers on an inveterate twenty-something slacker who stumbles into a career as a crime scene cleaner, only to find himself entangled with a murder mystery, a femme fatale and the loose ends of his own past.
All Signs of Death
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NRA group of aspiring musicians in 18th-century Vienna come from all over Europe to attend a prestigious musical academy.
Virtuoso
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NRA group of aspiring musicians in 18th-century Vienna come from all over Europe to attend a prestigious musical academy.
Virtuoso
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NRBased on the play by Alan Ball
5 Women Wearing the Same Dress
2015