AMERICAN BUFFALO- About the Author

DAVID MAMET

Mamet was born in Flossmoor, Illinois on November 30, 1947, and often incorporates overtones of his hometown in his plays. He studied at Goddard College in Vermont and at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York. He has taught at New York University, Goddard College, and the Yale Drama School, and he regularly lectures at the Atlantic Theater Company, of which he is a founding member.

The Pulitzer Prize winner made his name with Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974), The Duck Variations (1976) and American Buffalo (1977), these dark dramas had strong male characters with highly charged dialogue that built dramatic tension within the confines of the play. He often portrays the plight of small-time drifters, salesmen, and hoods and the con games they play. The Woods (1977) and Edmond (1982) were followed by two successful plays: Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) for which he won his Pulitzer prize is a damning representation of the American business practices, and Speed-the-Plow (1988), which gives a savage view of the underside of the film industry. Glengarry Glen Ross was later made into a film version in 1992 using Mamets’ own script.

In addition to working on the stage, he’s written screenplays for himself to direct (House of Games, Things Change, Homicide, Oleanna) as well as for others (Bob Rafelson’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict , Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables). Mamet began writing for the screen in 1981 with a re-make of The Postman Always Rings Twice, his script emphasizing base sexuality and violence of the material in such a way that the original 1947 film could not. After Glengarry Glen Ross, Mamet had his first true screen success as a screenwriter with Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables in 1987. That same year he received critical acclaim for his directorial debut, House of Games, a crime thriller starring Mamets then-wife Lindsay Crouse as a psychologist caught up in an elaborate con game.

After directing two more celebrated features (Things Change, Homicide), Mamet turned primarily to screenwriting lending his talent to such films as Hoffa (1992), and Vanya on 42nd Street (1994). He took a brief respite to step back behind the camera to direct an adaptation of his controversial play Oleanna in 1994.

His screenplay for Barry Levinson’s political satire Wag the Dog earned him both an Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Screenplay. That same year he directed The Spanish Prisoner , his fifth film as writer-director, a twisting spy thriller that had the added attraction of Steve Martin in an uncharacteristically dark role.

Mamet makes few distinctions between working on the stage and the screen; He believes both involve putting the material on its feet and seeing how it plays. With movies, that’s done in the editing room or sometimes on the set. With plays, it’s done during rehearsals. In neither case does he see himself handicapped by being both the writer and the director.

“There are two stages,” Mamet says, “First I write the best script I can and then I put on my directors hat and say, ‘What am I going to do with this piece of crap?’”

As an author he is also enjoying great success. In 1997 he published two books, “True and False,” a prickly and exhortatory treatise for young actors about the trials of their chosen profession; and a novel, “The Old Religion,” which purports to trace the thoughts of Leo Frank, the Jewish factory manager in Georgia, who in 1915 was wrongly convicted of and executed for the rape and murder of one of his employees, as he waited out his torment in prison.

Mamet has been involved in two marriages. The first time to Lindsay Crouse who starred in House of Games . They have two daughters together, Willa and Zosia. Now teen-agers, they reside with their mother in California. His second and current marriage is to Rebecca Pidgeon, who has acted in his productions of The Water Engine (1992), Homicide (1991), The Winslow Boy (1999), State and Main (2000), and Heist (2001), as well as the original theatre production of Oleanna. She also composed the music for the film version of Oleanna. She is a well-known singer/songwriter in the pop/folk music world, and that she has even co-written some songs with her husband. They have one daughter, Clara now six. They have houses in Vermont and Cambridge, Massachusetts.