DAVID E. KELLEY
Kelley and Michelle Pfeiffer at the 47th Emmy Awards in 1994
Born April 4, 1956 (age 51)
Waterville, Maine
Occupation writer, executive producer, lawyer
Spouse(s) Michelle Pfeiffer (1993-)
Children Claudia Rose Kelley (b.1993) (adopted)
John Henry Kelley (b.1994)
[show]Awards
David Edward Kelley (born April 4, 1956) is a prolific multi-Emmy award winning
American writer, executive producer, and creator of the well-known television
series Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, The Practice, Ally McBeal, Boston Public,
and Boston Legal. He has also written several film scripts. Kelley's shows are
renowned for their whimsical, occasionally surreal comedic touches, as well as
moments of seriousness.
Born in Waterville, Maine, raised in Belmont, Massachusetts and attended the
Belmont Hill School. Kelley was the son of a hockey coach and played the game
himself. He was captain of the team at Princeton University, from which he
graduated in 1979 with a degree in politics.
Demonstrating early on a creative and quirky bent, in his junior year at
Princeton, Kelley submitted a paper for a political science class about John F.
Kennedy's plot to kill Fidel Castro as a poem. For his senior thesis, he
turned the Bill of Rights into a play. "I made each amendment into a character,"
he said. "The First Amendment is a loudmouth guy who won't shut up. The Second
Amendment guy, all he wanted to talk about was his gun collection. Then the 10th
Amendment, the one where they say leave the rest for the states to decide, he
was a guy with no self-esteem." Also while at Princeton, he was a member of
the Princeton Triangle Club.
He graduated with a law degree from Boston University where he wrote comedy
sketches for the annual follies. He began working for a Boston law firm, mostly
dealing with real estate and minor criminal cases. In 1983, while considering it
only a hobby, Kelley began writing a screenplay, a legal thriller, which was
optioned in 1986 and later became the Judd Nelson feature film From the Hip in
1987.
Kelley and Michelle Pfeiffer at the 47th Emmy Awards in 1994
Born April 4, 1956 (age 51)
Waterville, Maine
Occupation writer, executive producer, lawyer
Spouse(s) Michelle Pfeiffer (1993-)
Children Claudia Rose Kelley (b.1993) (adopted)
John Henry Kelley (b.1994)
[show]Awards
David Edward Kelley (born April 4, 1956) is a prolific multi-Emmy award winning
American writer, executive producer, and creator of the well-known television
series Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, The Practice, Ally McBeal, Boston Public,
and Boston Legal. He has also written several film scripts. Kelley's shows are
renowned for their whimsical, occasionally surreal comedic touches, as well as
moments of seriousness.
Born in Waterville, Maine, raised in Belmont, Massachusetts and attended the
Belmont Hill School. Kelley was the son of a hockey coach and played the game
himself. He was captain of the team at Princeton University, from which he
graduated in 1979 with a degree in politics.
Demonstrating early on a creative and quirky bent, in his junior year at
Princeton, Kelley submitted a paper for a political science class about John F.
Kennedy's plot to kill Fidel Castro as a poem. For his senior thesis, he
turned the Bill of Rights into a play. "I made each amendment into a character,"
he said. "The First Amendment is a loudmouth guy who won't shut up. The Second
Amendment guy, all he wanted to talk about was his gun collection. Then the 10th
Amendment, the one where they say leave the rest for the states to decide, he
was a guy with no self-esteem." Also while at Princeton, he was a member of
the Princeton Triangle Club.
He graduated with a law degree from Boston University where he wrote comedy
sketches for the annual follies. He began working for a Boston law firm, mostly
dealing with real estate and minor criminal cases. In 1983, while considering it
only a hobby, Kelley began writing a screenplay, a legal thriller, which was
optioned in 1986 and later became the Judd Nelson feature film From the Hip in
1987.