Ryan Murphy (producer)

Ryan Patrick Murphy (born November 9, 1965) is an American television writer, director, and producer.

Murphy was born on November 9, 1965, in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he was raised in a Catholic family.

His ancestry includes Irish and Danish.

He attended Catholic school from first through eighth grade, and graduated from Warren Central High School in Indianapolis.

He has described his mother J. Andy Murphy as a "beauty queen who left it all to stay at home and take care of her two sons".

She wrote five books and worked in communications for over 20 years before retiring.

His father worked in the newspaper industry as a circulation director before he retired after 30 years.

After coming out as gay at age 15, Murphy saw his first therapist, who found nothing wrong with him other than being "too precocious for his own good".

He interned at The Washington Post in 1986.

He was placed in the style section.

Murphy started as a journalist working for The Miami Herald, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, Knoxville News Sentinel and Entertainment Weekly.

He began scriptwriting in the late 1990s, when Steven Spielberg purchased his script Why Can't I Be Audrey Hepburn?.

Murphy started his career in television with the teen comedy series Popular, which he co-created with Gina Matthews.

The series premiered on The WB on September 29, 1999, and ran for two seasons, ending in 2001.

During the time, his production company Ryan Murphy Productions signed a deal with Warner Bros. Television.

He has created and produced a number of television series including Nip/Tuck (2003–2010), Glee (2009–2015), American Horror Story (2011–present), American Crime Story (2016–present), Pose (2018–2021), 9-1-1 (2018–present), 9-1-1: Lone Star (2020–present), Ratched (2020), American Horror Stories (2021–present), and Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022).

He then created the FX drama series Nip/Tuck, which premiered on July 18, 2003.

In 2004, Murphy earned his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series.

Murphy took the show's signature line, "Tell me what you don't like about yourself," from a plastic surgeon he met when he was a journalist researching an undercover story on plastic surgery in Beverly Hills.

Murphy has also directed the 2006 film adaptation of Augusten Burroughs' memoir Running with Scissors, the 2010 film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir Eat, Pray, Love, the 2014 film adaptation of Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart, and the 2020 film adaptation of the musical The Prom.

Murphy has received six Primetime Emmy Awards from 38 nominations, a Tony Award from two nominations, and two Grammy Award nominations.

He has often been described as "the most powerful man" in modern television and signed the largest development deal in television history with Netflix.

Murphy is noted for having created a shift in inclusive storytelling that "brought marginalised characters to the masses".

In 2006, Murphy wrote the screenplay for and directed the feature film Running with Scissors, based on the memoir by Augusten Burroughs.

On May 19, 2009, Murphy's musical comedy-drama series, Glee, premiered on Fox.

He co-created the series with Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan.

In its early seasons, the show was critically lauded.

Murphy won his first Primetime Emmy Award for directing the pilot episode.

The series ended after six seasons in 2010.

In 2010, Murphy directed an adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir Eat, Pray, Love.

The film was a box office success but a critical failure, receiving harsh reviews criticizing its pacing and lack of credibility.

To date, the film has grossed $204,482,125 worldwide.

Murphy was one of four executive producers on the reality television series The Glee Project, which premiered on Oxygen on June 12, 2011.

The show featured a group of contestants vying for the prize of a seven-episode arc on Glee, with someone being eliminated each week, until the winner is chosen in the final episode.

The show was renewed for a second season, which ended up being its last.

Murphy was openly critical of several prominent bands for not releasing music for use in Glee, for which he subsequently apologized.

During a 2012 interview on Inside the Actors Studio, Murphy claimed that he secretly dated "a lot of football players" in high school.

He performed with a choir as a child, which would later inform his work on Glee.

Murphy attended Indiana University Bloomington, where he majored in journalism and was a member of the Singing Hoosiers vocal ensemble.

The series concluded in 2015 following its sixth season.