BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " LEE DANIELS " HE IS KNOWN FOR PRODUCING FILMS THAT TACKLE SUCH THORNY ISSUES AS RACE, IMAGE, FAMILY VIOLENCE AND SEX : GOES INTO THE £ HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

                                            BLACK                 SOCIAL              HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Lee Daniels was born December 24, 1959 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is known for producing films that tackle such thorny issues as race, image, family violence, and sex. Along the way he's shown that these stories can succeed at the box office. His critically acclaimed 2002 hit, Monster's Ball, was not only an Oscar winner, but turned a $2.5 million production into a $31 million success.

QUOTES

"Shadowboxer was based on my life," Daniels told The Times. "I knew killers. My uncle, who took care of me, murdered people, and yet he took care of me too. People who have gone to jail for murder are also human."

– Lee Daniel

Early Life

Film producer, director. Born December 24, 1959, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Lee Daniels is known for his uncompromising work, producing films that tackle such thorny issues as race, image, family violence, and sex. Along the way he's shown that these stories can have success at the box office. His critically acclaimed 2002 hit,Monster's Ball, was not only an Oscar winner, but turned a $2.5 million production into a $31 million success.

Daniels was born far away from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. The oldest of five children born to Clara and William Daniels, Lee Daniels grew up in West Philadelphia. His dad, a cop who had once worked as a bodyguard for Muhammad Ali and was killed in a robbery when his oldest boy was just 12, could be hard on his children, especially Daniels, whose early signs of his homosexuality didn't exactly sit well with him.

But beyond the physical abuse William Daniels sometimes brought to the household, there was another side to him, one that centered on a deep appreciation for books and poetry. He had a passion for reading, and wrote his own short stories and poetry. "Anything artistic I got, I got from him," Daniels has said.

Despite the obvious strain William Daniels placed on his relationship with his children, Lee Daniels says he clearly loved his dad, and his shocking death was difficult to overcome, much less understand.

Career in Healthcare

After high school, Daniels headed off to St. Louis, Missouri, to attend the small liberal arts school, Lindenwood College. He wanted to study theater and film, but it wasn't long before he grew frustrated with academics. Just before the start of his junior year, dropped out.

He packed up his things again and, with just $7 in his pocket a lot of ambition, moved to Los Angeles to make it as a writer. He didn't have much luck finding work in Hollywood, however. Instead, to make ends meet, Daniels took a job as a receptionist at a nursing agency. Within a short time, Daniels was part of management, then started his own nursing agency out of his home.

It wasn't what Daniels had moved out to Hollywood to do, but soon his five-person nursing staff had grown to 500 and he was heading up a company worth several million dollars. As it would be with his later film work, there was a bit of a pioneering spirit behind Daniels' healthcare career. In addition to working with the American Heart & Lung Associations and the American Sickle Cell Anemia Association, his company became the first of its kind in the country to land a contract with the AIDS Project Los Angeles.

But Daniels hadn't completely abandoned his dream of working in Hollywood. By chance, a client of his was also a producer who had worked with Prince. The two got to talking one Saturday morning and, when Daniels told him what his real career ambitions were, the producer told him he could help him find a job.

And so, at the age of 22, Daniels sold his agency, pocketed several million dollars, and started a new career as a production assistant. His focus soon became casting,

In 1984, Daniels, frustrated by the lack of meaty roles available to proven African-American actors, yet again showed his ambition and drive by striking out on his own. He formed Lee Daniels Entertainment, a New York City-based management company whose clients would eventually include some of the biggest names in Hollywood, from Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Hilary Swank to Morgan Freeman and Marianne Jean-Baptiste.and he eventually found himself working on big-name projects likeUnder the Cherry Moon and Purple Rain.

Daniels' foray into movie-making with the creation of Monster's Ball came about after several conversations with Sean Penn about the film. The story, which is centered on a complicated bi-racial romance, had seen more than a few stops and starts as different directors—first Penn, and later Oliver Stone—tried to make a movie out of it. Fascinated by the tale, and frustrated at all the obstacles, Daniels took control of the project himself. He turned to Swiss-born director Marc Foster to lead the movie, and convinced enough A-list talent—Halle Berry and Bill Bob Thornton, among others—to do the film for little money.

The result was an unabashed success, getting a Best Writing nomination at the 2002 Academy Awards, and making Berry the first African-American woman to win a Best Actress Oscar. In addition, the movie made Daniels the first African-American to solely produce an Academy Award-nominated film.

Mainstream Success

Daniels wasted little time basking in the accolades. In 2004 he produced his next film, The Woodsman, a haunting tale about the tormented life of a child molester who was released from prison. The film, starring Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick and Mos Def, earned more acclaim and more awards for Daniels.

Two years later, audiences got a chance to see the result of Daniels' directorial work, with the release of Shadow boxer. Starring Helen Mirren, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Mo'Nique, Stephen Dorff, Vanessa Ferlito, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Macy Gray, the film tells the tale of a mother and her stepson who are also assassins.

As it has been with much of his work, Daniel's personal biography factored into his initial attraction to the story. "Shadow boxer was based on my life," Daniels told The Times. "I knew killers. My uncle, who took care of me, murdered people, and yet he took care of me too. People who have gone to jail for murder are also human."

'Precious'

Daniels followed-up the crtically acclaimed film with Precious, the 2009 movie based on the novel Push, by Sapphire.

The novel recounts the story of an overweight African-American girl and her attempts to break free from the violence that has shaped her life. "Ally Sheedy's mother gave me the book to read," Daniels recalled. "It blew me away, it rocked my soul, it stuck me to like hot grits. But the author at first wouldn't give me the rights to the book. I kept stalking her, and she finally gave me the book."

The film,

Even then, however, the movie was far from an easy production. Daniels, who both produced and directed the film, fired staff. On a few occasions the film budget also dried up. At one point, Daniels had Carey give a private concert at his house to raise money from a group of prospective investors. The film was eventually finished, and the end product has only enhanced Daniels' stardom. At Sundance, Precious earned three awards, including the Grand Jury Prize, and also took home the People's Choice award at the Toronto Film Festival, the event's highest honor.which co-stars Mariah Carey and Mo'Nique, was hardly a cookie-cutter operation. Because of the physical proportions demanded of the lead character, Daniels and his team had to look beyond Hollywood and most conventional casting methods to find a 350-pound African-American woman to play Claireece Precious Jones. They eventually found their woman in Gabourey Sidibe, a New York City resident who had no prior acting experience.

With success has come criticism, and Daniels' movies have drawn concern, and sometimes ire, from film critics about his portrayal of African-American characters. Precious is no exception. In the film, the lead character contracts AIDS from her father, which serves to only reinforce certain stereotypes, critics counter, about the black community and black women in general.

Daniels doesn't see it that way. "Black women are dying because everyone wants to pretend to have a certain image," he told reporters shortly after the movie's release in the fall of 2009. "Most of the AIDS patients in this country are black women. For me to portray and not tell my truth and bring it to the screen would be an injustice to me as a man—forget about a black man, but as a man. I would be lying and black women are dying."

Recent Projects and Personal Life

All of which points to how Daniels has been careful to leverage his celebrity and power for causes he believes in. In 2004, for example, he teamed up with former President Clinton on a series of public service productions to encourage young African-Americans to vote.

Daniels has continued to make engaging and challenging films. In 2012, he directed The Paperboy with Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman. The movie gained some notoriety for a risque scene featuring its two lead actors. Daniels then created a truly American epic with The Butler (2013), which looks a series of presidents through the people who served them. The star-studded cast includes Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey. Made for less than $30 million, The Butler has brought in more than $115 million domestically. There is also substantial buzz around the film and its performances about possible Academy Award nominations.

For his next project, Daniels has decided to tackle the life of rock legend Janis Joplin. As he told The Hollywood Reporter, "I had no idea Janis Joplin was so smart—intellectual, even. Look, some of the smartest people in the world have been drug addicts." Amy Adams stars as the late singer. Daniels is confident that Adams has the vocal talent to pull off such a challenging role. After the Joplin film,

A resident of New York City, Daniels lives with his partner, casting director Billy Hopkins, and his twin daughters, Clara and Liam, whom he adopted from his brother in 1996.he is considering bringing the musical Miss Saigon to the big screen.