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You could know Shonda Rhimes from her e book, Yr of Sure, or you could know her from tv. Certainly, whether or not you notice it or not, you’ve nearly actually interacted ultimately along with her exceptional and prolific output over the past 20 years, most of it made by way of her manufacturing firm Shondaland, with producing accomplice Betsy Beers. Not solely did Shonda create, produce, and showrun Gray’s Anatomy, some of the ubiquitous and profitable hospital dramas (which occurs to share its identify with the e book Grey’s Anatomy, however will not be in any other case associated), she additionally created, produced, and showran Scandal, Tips on how to Get Away with Homicide, the Gray’s spinoff Non-public Follow, and just a little Netflix sequence known as Bridgerton.
Let’s check out the bookish lifetime of Shonda Rhimes. Born in Chicago on January 13, 1970, Shonda is the youngest of six kids. A lifelong storyteller, she studied English and movie at Dartmouth Faculty, writing fiction in addition to for the school newspaper, and directing and performing in theater with the Black Underground Theater Affiliation. After briefly working in promoting, Shonda moved to Los Angeles and attended USC the place she studied screenwriting and graduated with an MFA on the prime of her class, incomes the Gary Rosenberg Writing Fellowship.
Her earliest job in Hollywood was because the analysis director for the 1995 documentary Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream, following Aaron’s try to beat Babe Ruth’s file for residence runs; whereas the film will not be based mostly on a e book, it’s secure to imagine the analysis was. She directed a brief movie in 1998, bought a characteristic script, and was employed to jot down the 1999 biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, based mostly on the biography Dorothy Dandridge by Earl Mills. After debuting on HBO, the movie earned a number of awards for Halle Berry, who starred as Dandridge.
In 2002, Shonda adopted her first daughter. She was employed to jot down 2004’s The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Wedding ceremony, an unique sequel to the 2001 film based mostly on The Princess Diaries books by Meg Cabot. The next yr, Gray’s Anatomy was picked up as a mid-season substitute on ABC. The spin-off sequence, Non-public Follow, debuted two years after that in 2007, with a shortened first season because of the WGA writers strike for, amongst different issues, streaming residuals. She adopted a second daughter in 2012, and her third daughter was born in 2013 by way of gestational surrogacy. Yr of Sure: Tips on how to Dance It Out, Stand Within the Solar and Be Your Personal Particular person was printed in 2016, chronicling the yr she spent saying sure to alternatives as a substitute of letting worry and being busy hold her from them.
In 2017, Shonda joined the board at Deliberate Parenthood; co-founded Time’s As much as assist victims of sexual harassment, following the Me Too motion; produced Nonetheless Star-Crossed, based mostly on the e book Nonetheless Star-Crossed by Melinda Taub; and entered into an unique general cope with Netflix, creating a number of unique sequence for the streaming big. The next yr she had this to say about allegations that TV writers being lured to streaming:
Say it with me, my fellow creatives: I’m the sweet.
However the Netflix deal is actually the place we’re seeing Shonda lean into bookish tales. Bridgerton debuted in 2020, based mostly on the novels by Julia Quinn: the primary season relies on the primary novel, The Duke and I, and the second season on the second novel, The Viscount Who Cherished Me. The sequence takes the white historic romance novels and reimagines them as a various world wherein the Queen of England is a Black lady, as are a number of vital households within the close-knit upper-class society. Season 2, wherein eldest brother and titular viscount Anthony romances sisters Kate and Edwina Sharma (rewritten for the sequence to be from India), had record-setting viewership; a 3rd and fourth season are underneath contract.
Between seasons of Bridgerton, Shonda produced the miniseries Inventing Anna, based mostly on the New York Journal article about faux heiress Anna Delvey, “How Anna Delvey Tricked New York” by Jessica Pressler. Arising subsequent is an anthology sequence titled Notes on Love, which is able to showcase tales about marriage from numerous creators together with TV producer Norman Lear, songwriter Diane Warren, and writers Lindy West (Shrill, The Witches are Coming) and Jenny Han (The Summer season I Turned Fairly, To All of the Boys I’ve Cherished Earlier than), in addition to comic and Solely Murders within the Constructing star Steve Martin, creator of many books and performs together with the memoir Born Standing Up and the novella Shopgirl.
In July 2021, Shonda’s Netflix deal was prolonged for 5 years, so we should always have loads of reveals to stay up for, a lot of them hopefully bookish.
Need to take a peek on the bookish lifetime of different well-known individuals? Dive into the bookish lifetime of Catherine O’Hara, the bookish lifetime of Michelle Yeoh, and the bookish lifetime of Lee Tempo.