Shonda Rhimes

Shonda Rhimes
Born	Shonda Rhimes January 13, 1970 (1970-01-13) Chicago, Illinois, USA
Occupation	producer, screenwriter, and director.

Shonda Rhimes (born January 13, 1970) is an American screenwriter, director and producer. Rhimes is best known as the creator, head writer, and executive producer of acclaimed television series Grey's Anatomy and its spin-off Private Practice. In May 2007, Rhimes was named one of Time magazine's 100 people who help shape the world. Rhimes was an executive producer for the medical drama series Off the Map, and is currently developing a new series, Scandal, for the ABC network which is expected to launch midseason 2012.

Early life

Rhimes was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of a university administrator and a college professor. Rhimes resided in Park Forest South, Illinois (now University Park) with four siblings. Rhimes has stated that she exhibited an early affinity for storytelling and that her time spent as a candy striper while in high school sparked an interest in hospital environments.

Rhimes attended Marian Catholic High School, before enrolling at Dartmouth College, where she earned her Bachelor's Degree. At Dartmouth, she divided her time between fiction and directing and performing in plays. As a Dartmouth alumna, Rhimes often peppers the scripts with references to the college (Meredith Grey, the title character on Grey's Anatomy, frequently wears Dartmouth memorabilia). After college, she relocated to San Francisco with an older sibling and obtained a job in advertising. Rhimes would later relocate to Los Angeles to attend USC to study screenwriting. Rhimes was ranked at the top of her class and earned the prestigious Gary Rosenberg Writing Fellowship Award. Rhimes earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television.

Career

After graduation, Rhimes found herself swimming in the teeming pool of unemployed scriptwriters in Hollywood. To make ends meet, Rhimes worked at a variety of day jobs, including as an office administrator, and then as a counselor at a job center that taught mentally ill and homeless people job skills. During this period, Rhimes also worked as research director on the 1995 Peabody Award-winning documentary, Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream (1995). Rhimes made her directorial debut in 1998 with the short film “Blossoms and Veils” starring Jada Pinkett-Smith and Jeffrey Wright.

A feature script Rhimes wrote was purchased by New Line Cinema. This was soon followed by an assignment to write the acclaimed 1999 HBO movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. It earned numerous awards for its star, Halle Berry. Rhimes followed this film with a theatrical project that could not have been further from Dorothy Dandridge –2002's Crossroads – the movie debut of pop singer Britney Spears. Rhimes survived that film’s predicted flameout and moved on to Disney’s sequel to its popular 2001 movie The Princess Diaries. Though 2004's The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004) did not score at the box office like its predecessor, Rhimes later said that she treasured the experience if for nothing else – the opportunity to work with its star, Julie Andrews.

While spending time at home, Rhimes found herself hooked on shows like the WB's 1997–2003 drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer and HBO's The Sopranos, as well as medical documentary series on The Discovery Channel. Rhimes utilizes many actors from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel programs on both Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice. These actors include Amber Benson, Nicholas Brendon, Seth Green, Emma Caulfield, Adam Busch, Alexis Denisof, D.B. Woodside, J. August Richards, and Amy Acker. Rhimes' executive producer and collaborator for Private Practice, Marti Noxon, was also a writer and producer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Prior to Grey's Anatomy, Rhimes penned her first pilot script about the lives of war correspondents. Rhimes' script was rejected due to the rapidly escalating conflict in Iraq. Rhimes penned the Grey’s Anatomy pilot in late 2003, and received the green light to commence with the project in 2004.

Rhimes won the Best Drama TV Series Golden Globe award in 2007 for Grey's Anatomy.

Grey's Anatomy

Rhimes is currently the creator, executive producer and head writer of Grey's Anatomy. The series debuted as a midseason replacement on March 27, 2005. The series focuses on the surgical staff at the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital in Seattle, Washington. The series features an ensemble cast with Ellen Pompeo serving as titular character Meredith Grey, who provides narration for a majority of the series' episodes.

On May 16, 2006, ABC announced plans to relocate Grey's Anatomy from Sunday evenings to Thursdays in order to anchor the network's Thursday evening programming, by airing Thursdays at 9 p.m. EST. As Thursday has historically been the most competitive programming night among American broadcast networks, the announced schedule change for the series has been viewed by media analysts as another vote of confidence in the series from ABC.

The seventh season ended on May 18, 2011 and returned for an eighth season which aired on September 22, 2011.

Private Practice

Rhimes also created and produces the Grey's Anatomy spin-off series Private Practice. The series debuted on September 26, 2007 on ABC. The show chronicles the life of Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) as she leaves Seattle Grace Hospital for Los Angeles in order to join a private practice. The series features an ensemble cast, including Tim Daly, Amy Brenneman, Audra McDonald and Taye Diggs among others.

The first season was shortened due to writers' strike and consists of only nine episodes.

In January 2011, ABC picked up Private Practice for the 2011-12 television season. The fifth season premiered September 29, 2011.

Other projects

Rhimes created a new pilot for ABC in 2010 called Inside the Box, a female-centric ensemble drama set in a Washington, D.C. network news bureau. It centered on Catherine, an ambitious female news producer, and her colleagues pursuing "the story" at all costs while juggling their personal animosities and crises of conscience. It was not picked up by the network.

In 2011, Rhimes served as executive producer for the medical drama, Off the Map, which was created by Grey's Anatomy writer, Jenna Bans. It focused on a group of doctors who practice medicine at a remote clinic in the Amazon. The series was officially cancelled by the ABC network on May 13, 2011. Rhimes had hoped the show would be as popular as its sister shows Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice but the ratings were not up to expectations.

In May 2011, ABC ordered Rhimes' pilot script Scandal to series. Kerry Washington stars as Olivia Pope, a political crisis management expert who is partially based on former Bush administration press aide Judy Smith. The series will serve as a midseason replacement in 2012.

Awards and nominations

• In 2005, Rhimes was nominated for a Black Reel Award(original and adaptation) for the Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.
• Rhimes has been nominated for an image award on five occasions and has won four awards out of the five.
• In 2007, Rhimes won an image award for "Outstanding Writing in a Dramatic Series" for the episode "It's the End of the World".
• On February 14, 2008 at the 39th NAACP Image Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium in California, Rhimes won 'Outstanding Writing for a Dramatic Series for the episode "A Change is Gonna Come" on Grey's Anatomy. In addition, Rhimes and fellow writer Krista Vernoff won an award for "Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series" for Private Practice.
• Rhimes has gone on to winning a further two image awards. One in 2009 for the episode "Freedom" part one and two and the other in 2010 for "What a Difference a Day Makes" both for "Outstanding Writing in a Dramatic Series" on Grey's Anatomy.
• Rhimes was nominated for an Emmy on three occasions: in 2006, for a dramatic series and a separate nomination for writing a dramatic series, followed by a third nomination in 2007 for a dramatic series.
• Rhimes was nominated by PGA awards for the "Television Producer of the Year Award in Episodic" for Drama in Grey's Anatomy in 2006, 2007 and 2008 and won the award in 2007.
• Rhimes was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay for the 2002 Britney Spears film Crossroads.
• Rhimes and fellow co-workers were nominated in 2006 and 2007 by the Writers Guild of America, USA for the WGA Award (TV) and won the award in 2006.
• In 2007, Rhimes, along with the cast of Grey's Anatomy, was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award in recognition of her excellence and innovation in her creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television

External links

• Shonda Rhimes at the Internet Movie Database
• 'Grey Matter' Writer's Blog on ABC.com
• http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/11/shonda_rhimes_in_crisis_judy_s.html
• Interview with Shonda Rhimes on the Tavis Smiley show
• Writer's Guild of America profile