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Barry Levinson
Born	April 6, 1942 (1942-04-06) (age 66) Baltimore, Maryland
Spouse(s)	Valerie Curtin (1977-1982) Diana Rhodes
Awards won Academy Awards Best Director 1988 Rain Man Emmy Awards Outstanding Writing in a Comedy-Variety or Music Series 1974, 1975 The Carol Burnett Show Outstanding Children's Program 1985 Displaced Person Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing in a Drama Series 1993 Homicide: Life on the Street

Barry Levinson (born April 6, 1942) is an Academy Award-winning American screenwriter, film director, actor, and producer of film and television.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Career 1.3 Personal life 2 References 3 External links

Levinson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Vi (née Krichinsky) and Irvin Levinson, who worked in furniture and appliance business.^[1] After growing up in Baltimore and graduating from Forest Park Senior High School, Levinson attended American University in Washington, D.C. before moving to Los Angeles to work as an actor and writer. Levinson at one time shared an apartment with would-be drug smuggler (and basis for the movie "Blow") George Jung.

Levinson's first writing work was for variety shows such as The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, The Lohman and Barkley Show, The Tim Conway Show, and The Carol Burnett Show. After some success as a screenwriter -- notably the Mel Brooks comedies Silent Movie (1976) and High Anxiety (1977) (in which he made a cameo appearance as a bellboy) and the Oscar-nominated script (co-written by then-wife Valerie Curtin) ...And Justice for All, (1979) -- Levinson began his career as a director with Diner (1982), for which he had also written the script and which earned him a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination.

Diner was the first of a series of films set in the Baltimore of Levinson's youth. The others were Tin Men (1987), a story of aluminum-siding salesmen in the 1950s starring Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito; the immigrant family saga Avalon (which featured Elijah Wood in one of his earliest screen appearances), and Liberty Heights (1999).

His biggest hit, both critically and financially, was Rain Man (1988) with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise (in which Levinson also appeared as an actor). The film won four Academy Awards including Best Director for Levinson. Another notable film in his career was the 1984 baseball drama The Natural starring Robert Redford, who would later direct Quiz Show and cast Levinson as television personality Dave Garroway. Levinson also directed Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) and Toys (1992), both with Robin Williams, and the critically acclaimed Bugsy (1991) with Warren Beatty.

He directed Dustin Hoffman again in Wag the Dog (1997), a political comedy co-starring Robert DeNiro about a war staged in a film studio. Levinson had been an uncredited co-writer on Hoffman's hit comedy Tootsie in 1982. He partnered with producer Mark Johnson to form the film production company Baltimore Pictures, until the duo parted ways in 1994.

Levinson has been a producer or executive producer for such major productions as The Perfect Storm directed by Wolfgang Petersen (2000); Analyze That (2002), starring DeNiro as a neurotic mob boss and Billy Crystal as his therapist, and Possession (2002), based on the best-selling novel by A. S. Byatt.

He has a television production company with Tom Fontana (The Levinson/Fontana Company) and served as executive producer for a number of series, including Homicide: Life on the Street (which ran on NBC from 1993-1999) and the HBO prison drama Oz. Levinson also played a main role in the short-lived TV series The Jury, where he played a judge (the role was uncredited).

Levinson published his first novel, Sixty-Six (ISBN 0-7679-1533-X), in 2003. Like several of his films, it is semi-autobiographical and set in Baltimore in the 1960s. He directed two webisodes of the American Express ads "The Adventures of Seinfeld and Superman".

Levinson married his writing collaborator Valerie Curtin in 1975. They divorced seven years later. He later married Dianna Rhodes whom he met in Baltimore while filming Diner.

He is a minority owner of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.

Currently, he resides with his two sons and wife in Redding CT.

• Official site
• Barry Levinson at the Internet Movie Database
• Barry Levinson on Charlie Rose (March 24, 1994)

v • d • e Academy Award for Best Director Warren Beatty (1981) · Richard Attenborough (1982) · James L. Brooks (1983) · Miloš Forman (1984) · Sydney Pollack (1985) · Oliver Stone (1986) · Bernardo Bertolucci (1987) · Barry Levinson (1988) · Oliver Stone (1989) Kevin Costner (1990) · Jonathan Demme (1991) · Clint Eastwood (1992) · Steven Spielberg (1993) · Robert Zemeckis (1994) · Mel Gibson (1995) · Anthony Minghella (1996) · James Cameron (1997) · Steven Spielberg (1998) · Sam Mendes (1999) · Steven Soderbergh (2000) Complete List · (1927–1940) · (1941–1960) · (1961–1980) · (1981–2000) · (2001-present)

v • d • e Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series David Greene (1976) · David Greene (1977) · Marvin J. Chomsky (1978) · Jackie Cooper (1979) · Roger Young (1980) · Robert Butler (1981) · Harry Harris (1982) · Jeff Bleckner (1983) · Corey Allen (1984) · Karen Arthur (1985) · Georg Stanford Brown (1986) · Gregory Hoblit (1987) · Mark Tinker (1988) · Robert Altman (1989) · Thomas Carter / Scott Winant (1990) · Thomas Carter (1991) · Eric Laneuville (1992) · Barry Levinson (1993) · Daniel Sackheim (1994) · Mimi Leder (1995) · Jeremy Kagan (1996) · Mark Tinker (1997) · Mark Tinker / Paris Barclay (1998) · Paris Barclay (1999) · Thomas Schlamme (2000) Complete list: (1959–1975) · (1976–2000) · (2001–present)

v • d • e Barry Levinson films Diner (1982) · The Natural (1984) · Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) · Tin Men (1987) · Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) · Rain Man (1988) · Avalon (1990) · Bugsy (1991) · Toys (1992) · Jimmy Hollywood (1994) · Disclosure (1994) · Sleepers (1996) · Wag the Dog (1997) · Sphere (1998) · Liberty Heights (1999) · An Everlasting Piece (2000) · Bandits (2001) · Envy (2004) · Man of the Year (2006)