Contact Tyler Perry

Full Name:	Tyler Perry
Birth Name:	Tyler Perry
Famous As:	Actor
Date of Birth:	September 13, 1969
Place of Birth:	New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Height:	6' 5
Nationality:	American

• Filmmaker Tyler Perry Donates $1M to NAACP

  NewsChannel 8 - Found 21 minutes ago Filmmaker Tyler Perry has donated $1 million to the NAACP to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the civil rights organization.

• Bizarre, Endless SNL Skit Actually Funny

  Daily Beast - Found Nov. 22, 2009 How to explain this? Fellini meets Tyler Perry? BET parody doesn't parody BET but still works despite having neither structure nor jokes?

• Film: Two Films, Two Routes From Poverty

  New York Times - Found Nov. 21, 2009 Independently produced, with a Sundance audience award in its pocket, it attracted the sponsorship of Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, media... Review: Glint of hope emerges from a dark 'Precious' (11/20/2009) - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Tears Worth Shedding: Precious documents an adolescent life in a ... - Metro Weekly Precious is not your average screen heroine."You don't see people ... - Vancouver Sun Gabourey Sidibe is sweet but not Precious (321) - Amsterdam News Explore All

  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

• To Blacks, Precious Is ?Demeaned? or ?Angelic?

  New York Times - Found Nov. 20, 2009 ... the cultural influence of two of the movie?s executive producers, Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry; To Blacks, Precious Is ?Demeaned? or ?Angelic? - New York Times 'Precious' emotions - CNN Gabourey Sidibe: 'My first diet was at 6' - Digital Spy 'Blind Side,' 'Precious' feature themes of troubled youths ... - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Explore All

  NOLA Live

• To Blacks, Precious Is Demeaned or Angelic

  New York Times - Found Nov. 20, 2009 ... the cultural influence of two of the movies executive producers, Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry; Oscar buzz for 'Precious' - CNN The Debate Over 'Precious' - New York Times On the set of Precious: ?No tears, ladies!' - Globe and Mail Review: "Precious" walks through fires of abuse into miracle of ... - Denver Post Explore All

  Regina Leader-Post

• New on DVD: 'Gone With the Wind' looks great at 70

  USA Today - Found Nov. 19, 2009 Blu-ray, $40 How prickly young turks Kirk and Spock got together, plus Tyler Perry playing an admiral. Studios team for U.K. Blu-ray ad push As Blu-ray sales fail to lift ... - Hollywood Reporter New on DVD: 'Gone With the Wind' looks great at 70 - USA Today YOU ARE NOT YOUR FUCKING FIGHT CLUB BLU-RAY - CHUD The Best of Star Trek: The Next Generation - Volume 2 DVD Review - IGN.com Explore All

  CHUD

• Precious wins Producers Guild award

  CBC - Found Nov. 19, 2009 ... where it won a trio of awards and attracted the attention of media mogul Oprah Winfrey and filmmaker Tyler Perry, who came on board as... PGA to honor 'Precious' producers - Hollywood Reporter Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire - Boston Globe Precious star shows her mettle - Boston Globe Precious director Lee Daniels has never shied from controversy - Canada.com Explore All

  JoBlo Movie Emporium

• 'Precious' Lands Kramer Accolade

  Hollywood - Found Nov. 18, 2009 The filmâ??s producers, including Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, will be honored with the award at the 21st Annual PGA Awards ceremony... 'Precious' wins PGA's Kramer kudo - Variety 'Precious' to Be Honored With Kramer Award - New York Times Precious Lands Kramer Accolade - IMDB Explore All

  Hollywood

• Eddie Murphy involved in big-screen "Misadventures"

  Reuters via Yahoo! - Found Nov. 19, 2009 Tyler Perry is attached to produce and potentially star in that project. Murphy Attached to 'Trading Places'/'Dolittle'-Style Comedy - Hollywood Eddie Murphy lines up 'Fluffy' - Digital Spy Eddie Murphy involved in big-screen "Misadventures" - Reuters Canada Eddie Murphy involved in big-screen "Misadventures" - Reuters Explore All

  Cinema Blend

Tyler Perry extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Tyler Perry
Born	Emmitt R. Perry, Jr. September 14, 1969 (1969-09-14) (age 40) New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Occupation	Actor, Screenwriter, Theatre director, Film director, Television director, Playwright, Film producer, Television producer
Years active	1999–present
Official website

Tyler Perry (born September 14, 1969) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and author.¹ As of July 2009^[update], Tyler Perry's films have grossed over $400 million worldwide, not including his plays.² He also raked in $125 million between June 1, 2007 and June 1, 2008, and made history last year as the first black film producer to own a major television and film studio. To date, he's sold more than 25 million DVDs. He also has two hit TBS comedies, a best-selling book and several successful stage plays.

Contents 1 Personal life 2 Plays 3 Film 4 Television 5 Books 6 Stylistic trademarks 7 Philanthropy 8 Filmography 8.1 Film roles 8.2 Television work 9 Awards and nominations 10 References 11 External links

Personal life

Tyler Perry was born Emmitt R. Perry, Jr. in New Orleans, Louisiana (he now lives in Atlanta, Georgia).³ His father, Emmitt, Sr., was a carpenter and construction worker, and his mother, Maxine, was a pre-school teacher who worked at the New Orleans Jewish Community Center for most of her life.⁴⁵ The younger Perry changed his first name to Tyler because of his troubled relationship with his father. Tyler Perry has said that his father was physically and verbally abusive to him during his childhood, and that this contributed to his attempting suicide as a teenager.⁶⁷ A 2004 New York Times article referred to Perry's relationship with his father as "now mended".⁶ However, in a 2009 interview, Perry expressed disdain for his father and spoke in the present tense of his father being abusive to his mother.⁸

Perry dropped out of school when he was 16, but later went back to obtain his GED. He is good friends with Oprah Winfrey, rapper/actor Will Smith and Bishop T.D. Jakes.⁹ In 2008 Perry earned around $75 million, placing him just outside the top five highest paid men in Hollywood.¹⁰ Perry is known to be a devout homosexual. ¹¹

Plays

Perry has written and toured with eleven stage plays:

• I Know I've Been Changed (1998)
• I Can Do Bad All By Myself (1999)
• Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2001)
• Madea's Family Reunion (2002)
• Madea's Class Reunion (2003)
• Why Did I Get Married? (2004)
• Meet the Browns (2004-2005)
• Madea Goes to Jail (2005-2006)
• What's Done in the Dark (2006-2007)
• The Marriage Counselor (2008-2009)
• Laugh to Keep from Crying (2009-2010)

Some of Perry's plays have been adapted into films, usually with different actors. The stage plays feature more singing than the movies and are sometimes classed as musicals. Except for I Know I've Been Changed, they are all available on DVDs.

Film

Perry has full ownership of his movies, and places his name in front of all titles in which he is involved; Lionsgate Entertainment serves as his distributor.¹²

His first movie, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, produced on a budget of $5.5 million, became an unexpected commercial success prompting widespread discussion among industry watchers about whether middle-class African-Americans were simply not being addressed by mainstream Hollywood movies. Its final gross box office receipts were $50.6 million, although it was critically panned scoring only 16 percent approval rating on the website, Rotten Tomatoes.¹³ On its opening weekend, February 24, 2006, Perry's film version of Madea's Family Reunion opened at #1 with $30.3 million. The film eventually grossed $65 million and, like Diary, almost all of it in the United States. The film was jump-started by an hour-long appearance by Perry and his co-stars on the influential Oprah Winfrey show.¹⁴

His next project for Lions Gate, Daddy's Little Girls, starring Gabrielle Union and Idris Elba was released in the U.S. on February 14, 2007. It grossed over $31 million.¹⁵ Perry wrote, directed, produced and starred in his next movie, Why Did I Get Married?, which was released on October 12, 2007. It opened #1, grossing $21.4 million at the box office that weekend. It is loosely based on his play of the same name. Filming began March 5, 2007, in Whistler, British Columbia, Vancouver, then Atlanta, where Perry opened his own studio. Janet Jackson, Sharon Leal, Jill Scott and Tasha Smith appear in the film. Perry's 2008 film, Meet the Browns which was released on March 21, opened at #2 with a $20,082,809 weekend gross.¹⁶ The Family That Preys opened on September 12, 2008, and grossed over $37.1 million.

Madea Goes to Jail opened #1 on February 20, 2009, grossing $41 million and becoming his largest opening to date. This was Perry's seventh film with Lionsgate Entertainment. At the request of director J. J. Abrams,¹⁷ Perry had a cameo appearance in the movie Star Trek, which opened on May 8, 2009. This was his first movie appearance outside of his own projects. Perry next wrote, directed, and starred in I Can Do Bad All By Myself, a film structured around his Madea character.¹⁸ Perry has also teamed with Oprah Winfrey to present Precious, a movie based on the novel Push by Sapphire.¹⁹

Television

Perry produces a television show entitled Tyler Perry's House of Payne, which follows an African-American household with three generations of family in it. The show seeks to illustrate struggles with faith and love, as well as showing how to coexist with the generation gap. The show ran briefly in spring of 2006 as a 10-show pilot. After a successful pilot run, Perry signed a $200 million, 100-episode deal with TBS. On June 6, 2007, the first two episodes of Tyler Perry's House of Payne ran on TBS. After receiving high ratings, House of Payne entered syndication. Reruns were played through December 2007 before the second season began. The third season began on March 5, 2008 and the fourth season on June 4, 2008. House of Payne now airs on The CW and has aired 100 episodes.

The Writers Guild of America, West has filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging that House of Payne unlawfully fired four writers in October 2008 in retaliation for trying to get a union contract with Tyler Perry’s production company, House of Payne, LLC..²⁰

Meet The Browns, another sitcom that is written, directed, and produced by Perry, premiered on TBS on January 7, 2009.

Perry has stated that he may produce another series titled "Floyd's Family."

In early 2009, Perry threatened legal action against Mo' Money Taxes, a tax preparation company based in Memphis, for running a TV spot that he felt offensively parodied his work, in particular Madea Goes to Jail. The ad features a large Caucasian male (John Cowan) in drag, named "Ma'Madea". The offending ad was dropped from circulation. He is also working on the play My Brothers Keeper, to turn the play into a comedy series , taking place in Atlanta, Georgia. It will air on Wednesday's at 11:00pm, right after two new "Meet The Browns", on TBS, moving Lopez Tonight, at 12:00am.

Books

Perry's first novel, Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life, hit bookstores April 11, 2006. The book sold more than 25,000 copies.²¹ The hardcover hit #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list and stayed on the list for 12 weeks. It was voted the "Book of the Year" and "Best Humor Book" at the 2006 Quill Awards. He is also working on a book about his troubled childhood.

Stylistic trademarks

Perry always uses possessory credit in his works' titles (e.g., Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?). Several recurring narrative themes surface in Perry's work and they feature a predominantly African-American cast.

The recurring character of Mabel "Madea" Simmons surfaces in many of Perry's work. Perry portrays Madea by cross-dressing²² in his plays and films. Perry based Madea on an aunt who lives in Georgia, as well as his mother, according to Perry himself. In Madea's appearances, she dispenses wisdom in a "no-nonsense manner", and is usually involved in physical comedy and/or a sight gag. The nickname "Madea" comes from a Southern African-American contraction of the words "mother dear", which is commonly used as a term of affection. It is also used as a reference to a great-grandmother.

Tyler often references Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple, which he notes as one of his favorite movies. Perry's plays also make references to 1970s R&B and soul music, and the differences between that and the current state of rap/hip-hop music and other music popular among the black community.

Other references include singers Patti LaBelle, Whitney Houston, R. Kelly, Ike & Tina Turner, the movie Forrest Gump, the television sitcom Good Times, rapper Missy Elliott, and the singer Tweet.

Philanthropy

On July 20, 2009, Perry sponsored 65 children from a Philadelphia day camp to go to Walt Disney World after reading about a suburban swim club (Valley Swim Club, Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania), had shunned them because of reported racism.²³ On his website, Perry wrote, "I want them to know that for every act of evil that a few people will throw at you, there are millions more who will do something kind for them."²⁴

Filmography

Film roles

Year	Film	Credited as
		Director	Writer	Producer	Actor	Role
2005	Diary of a Mad Black Woman		Yes	Yes	Yes	Madea, Joe Baker, and Brian Baker
2006	Madea's Family Reunion	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Madea, Brian, Joe
2007	Daddy's Little Girls	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Why Did I Get Married?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Terry
2008	The Family That Preys	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Ben
	Meet the Browns	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Madea, Uncle Joe
2009	Madea Goes to Jail	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Madea, Joe, Brian
	Star Trek				Yes	Admiral Barnett
	I Can Do Bad All by Myself	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Madea, Joe
2010	Why Did I Get Married Too?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Terry
	For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf	Yes	Yes	Yes

Television work

Year	Film	Credited as
		Director	Writer	Producer	Actor	Role
2006	Tyler Perry's House of Payne	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Madea
2009	Meet the Browns (TV series)		Yes	Yes

Awards and nominations

• BET Comedy Awards
  • 2005: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Film (Diary of a Mad Black Woman), Winner
  • 2005: Outstanding Writing for a Film (Diary of a Mad Black Woman), Winner

• Black Movie Awards
  • 2006: Outstanding Achievement in Writing (Madea's Family Reunion), Nominated
  • 2006: Outstanding Motion Picture (Madea's Family Reunion), Nominated
  • 2005: Outstanding Motion Picture (Diary of a Mad Black Woman), Nominated

**2005: Outstanding Achievement in Writing (Diary of a Mad Black Woman), Winner

• Black Reel Awards
  • 2008: Outstanding Screenplay Adapted or Original (The Family That Preys), Nominated
  • 2008: Outstanding Screenplay Adapted or Original (Meet the Browns), Nominated
  • 2007: Outstanding Screenplay Adapted or Original (Madea's Family Reunion), Nominated
  • 2006: Outstanding Screenplay Adapted or Original (Diary of a Mad Black Woman), Nominated
  • 2006: Best Breakthrough Performance (Diary of a Mad Black Woman), Nominated

• Image Awards
  • 2009: Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture (The Family That Preys), Nominated
  • 2008: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture (Why Did I Get Married?), Nominated
  • 2007: Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture (Madea's Family Reunion), Nominated
  • 2007: Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture (Madea's Family Reunion), Nominated

• MTV Movie Awards
  • 2006: Best Comedic Performance (Madea's Family Reunion), Nominated
  • 2005: Best Male Breakthrough Performance (Diary of a Mad Black Woman), Nominated

References

External links

• Tyler Perry at the Internet Movie Database
• Tyler Perry Official website
• Tyler Perry's 34th Street Films Official website
• Tyler Perry Fan Club and Social Network
• Tyler Perry's "House of Payne" on TBS
• Tyler Perry at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Interview with Tyler Perry on beliefnet.com

v â€¢ d â€¢ e Tyler Perry Stage I Know I've Been Changed Â· I Can Do Bad All By Myself Â· Diary of a Mad Black Woman Â· Madea's Family Reunion Â· Madea's Class Reunion Â· Why Did I Get Married? Â· Madea's Christmas Â· Meet the Browns Â· Madea Goes to Jail Â· What's Done in the Dark Â· The Marriage Counselor Â· Laugh to Keep from Crying Film Diary of a Mad Black Woman Â· Madea's Family Reunion Â· Daddy's Little Girls Â· Why Did I Get Married? Â· Meet the Browns Â· The Family That Preys Â· Madea Goes to Jail Â· I Can Do Bad All By Myself Â· Why Did I Get Married Too? Television Tyler Perry's House of Payne Â· Meet the Browns Books Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life See also Mabel "Madea" Simmons Â· Characters in Tyler Perry plays Â· Lions Gate Entertainment