David Mamet Biography Quotes 14 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
David Alan Mamet was born on November 30, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois, into a Jewish family whose professions, pursuits, and civic commitments would inform his view of work, language, and responsibility. His father, Bernard Mamet, was a labor lawyer, and his mother, Lenore June (Silver) Mamet, taught and counseled in the public schools. Raised in and around Chicago, he absorbed the city's cadences and storefront commerce, elements that would later animate his stage characters and their hard-bargained speech. He attended the progressive Francis W. Parker School and went on to Goddard College in Vermont, where he studied literature and theater and began writing plays. After graduating, he taught for a time and returned frequently to Chicago stages, finding in that city's intimate theaters a proving ground for his developing dramatic voice.

Emergence in Chicago and Early Plays
In the 1970s Mamet helped build a new center of gravity for American regional theater. He co-founded the St. Nicholas Theatre Company in Chicago with colleagues including William H. Macy and Steven Schachter, a collaborative base where early works could be rehearsed in close quarters and tested before discerning audiences. Plays such as Sexual Perversity in Chicago (1974) and American Buffalo (1975) established his reputation for lean, percussive dialogue and vivid portraits of hustlers, salesmen, and strivers. Joe Mantegna, a key interpreter from the earliest Chicago productions, became one of the actors most closely identified with Mamet's characters. The success of these plays led to wider productions in New York and London and cemented Mamet as a playwright of national stature.

Breakthrough and the Pulitzer Prize
Mamet's breakthrough came with Glengarry Glen Ross (1983), a relentless study of real-estate salesmen locked in a pitiless contest. Its language, often profane yet musical, elevated streetwise persuasion into a kind of poetry. The play earned the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and multiple Tony Award nominations, confirming him as a central voice in contemporary theater. Speed-the-Plow (1988), a satire of Hollywood cynicism, further demonstrated his mastery of three-character sparring matches. Oleanna (1992), a two-hander about power, gender, and pedagogy, provoked intense debate and remains one of his most controversial works, its stark confrontations inviting opposing readings and fierce post-show discussions.

From Stage to Screen
While consolidating his reputation in theater, Mamet became one of the most distinctive American screenwriters. He adapted and wrote screenplays for major films, including The Verdict (1982), directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Paul Newman, which brought Mamet an Academy Award nomination. He wrote The Untouchables (1987) for director Brian De Palma, giving Eliot Ness and Al Capone (played by Kevin Costner and Robert De Niro) the crisp moral geometry of a crime ballad. He co-wrote Wag the Dog (1997), directed by Barry Levinson and starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro, earning another Oscar nomination. He also wrote The Edge (1997), a survival thriller for Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, and contributed to Ronin (1998), a taut espionage film known for its precision and economy.

Writer-Director and Filmmaker
Mamet directed a series of films that brought his stage sensibility to the screen with notable control over tone and rhythm. House of Games (1987), developed with and featuring the magician and scholar Ricky Jay, introduced audiences to Mamet's fascination with confidence games and performance. He went on to direct Things Change (1988), Homicide (1991), Oleanna (1994), The Spanish Prisoner (1997), State and Main (2000), Heist (2001), Spartan (2004), and Redbelt (2008). These films often featured a familiar ensemble of collaborators, including William H. Macy, Joe Mantegna, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay, and David Paymer, and demonstrated a commitment to craft that favored implication over exposition.

Companies, Collaborations, and Practical Aesthetics
Beyond his plays and films, Mamet left a structural mark on American acting and production. With William H. Macy, he co-founded the Atlantic Theater Company in 1985, a New York troupe and training institution whose members included Felicity Huffman and Clark Gregg. Together, Mamet and Macy articulated Practical Aesthetics, a clear, action-based approach to acting that distills Stanislavskian principles into pragmatic tools. The method influenced a generation of performers and is reflected in teaching at the Atlantic Acting School. Directors and producers such as Gregory Mosher helped shepherd early works to Broadway and beyond, building long-standing partnerships that matched Mamet's stringent writing with equally disciplined staging.

Themes, Style, and Craft
Mamet's signature style, often called Mamet-speak, relies on repetition, interruption, and subtextual feints that reveal the jockeying of status in everyday talk. His characters bargain and bluff not only for money but for dignity and control. Central themes include the morality of work, the ritual of the con, the temptations of power, and the cost of loyalty. In essays such as Writing in Restaurants, Make-Believe Town, Three Uses of the Knife, and Bambi vs. Godzilla, he elaborated a theory of storytelling that rejects sentimentality in favor of purposeful, cause-and-effect construction. He championed clarity of objective over psychological ornament, a stance extended in True and False and On Directing Film, where he argues for precision and economy in performance and shot design.

Television and Later Work
In television, Mamet created and executive produced The Unit (2006, 2009), a drama about a covert military team, developed with former Delta Force operator Eric Haney and in collaboration with producer Shawn Ryan. He continued to write and direct for stage and screen, producing new plays across the 2000s and 2010s, among them Boston Marriage, Romance, November, Race, The Anarchist, China Doll (with Al Pacino), and Bitter Wheat (with John Malkovich). These works sustained his preoccupations with negotiation, moral ambiguity, and the limits of institutional power, and they often placed actors known for precision and command at the center of tightly argued confrontations.

Essays, Prose, and Public Stance
Mamet has been a prolific essayist and author of fiction and memoir, publishing books on drama, filmmaking, and American life. Titles such as The Wicked Son and The Secret Knowledge reflect his examinations of Jewish identity and a declared shift in political outlook in the late 2000s, most famously announced in an essay explaining his move away from longstanding liberal assumptions. While these positions sparked criticism and debate, they also underscored a through-line in his work: a suspicion of cant, a preference for individual responsibility, and a dramaturgy that places conflict at the center of inquiry.

Personal Life
Mamet's personal and professional lives have been intertwined with actors and artists who have interpreted his work and created with him. He was married to the actress Lindsay Crouse; their family includes Willa Mamet and the actress Zosia Mamet. He later married the actress and singer Rebecca Pidgeon, a frequent performer in his films and plays; their family includes Clara Mamet, an actress and writer. His sister, Lynn Mamet, is also a playwright and producer. These relationships formed a creative circle that extended across stage and screen, contributing to the consistency and intensity of his ensembles.

Reception, Honors, and Influence
Mamet's contributions have been widely recognized. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross and received Tony Award nominations for multiple plays. His screenwriting brought Academy Award nominations, while his stage works garnered Drama Desk and other honors in the United States and the United Kingdom. More than prizes, however, his influence is felt in the diction of contemporary drama and the actor's approach to intention and action. Directors, playwrights, and performers have cited him as a model for constructing scenes with high stakes and minimal ornament. The film adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross, with Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, and Alan Arkin, magnified his voice to a broad audience and made his depiction of sales culture part of the popular lexicon.

Legacy
David Mamet stands as one of the defining dramatists of his generation, a craftsman whose dialogue reshaped American theater and whose screenwriting fused moral inquiry with genre precision. From Chicago storefronts to Broadway and from art-house thrillers to prestige television, he built a body of work that prizes structure, surprise, and argument. The artists around him, William H. Macy, Joe Mantegna, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay, Gregory Mosher, Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, and many others, formed a recurring company that tested and refined his ideas in practice. Through plays, films, essays, and pedagogy, he has left a durable architecture for making drama: specific actions, clear objectives, and speech that reveals, cuts, and, at its best, sings.

Our collection contains 14 quotes who is written by David, under the main topics: Wisdom - Truth - Meaning of Life - Dark Humor - Deep.

Other people realated to David: Steve Martin (Comedian), Danny DeVito (Actor), Gene Hackman (Actor), Val Kilmer (Actor), Derek Luke (Actor), Edward Zwick (Director), Emily Mortimer (Actress), Ron Silver (Actor), Bill Pullman (Actor), Joshua Jackson (Actor)