Alan E. Ball (born May 13, 1957) is an American writer, director, actor and producer for film, theatre and television. Ball was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to Frank and Mary Ball, an aircraft inspector and a homemaker. He attended high school in Marietta, and went on to attend the University of Georgia and Florida State University, from which he graduated in 1980 with a degree in theater arts. After college, he began work as a playwright at the General Nonsense Theater Company in Sarasota, Florida. Ball has written two films, Academy Award winner American Beauty and Towelhead. He is also the creator, writer and producer of the HBO drama series Six Feet Under and True Blood. For his work in television and film, Ball has received critical acclaim and numerous awards, including an Academy Award, an Emmy and a Golden Globe. In 2010 Ball began work on a television adaptation of the crime noir novel The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston, to be titled All Signs of Death. In December 2010, after several months of pre-production, HBO cancelled production on All Signs of Death. Ball is gay and has been called "a strong voice for [the] LGBT community". In 2008 he made
Quentin Tarantino is going to WAR with his famous neighbor -- claiming the guy owns a ton of exotic birds that constantly emit "blood-curdling screams" ... and it's affecting Q's ability to write… READ MORE >
