Marc Norman (born February 10, 1941) is an American screenwriter, novelist, and playwright. He is best known as the co-writer and co-producer ofShakespeare in Love (1998), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with Tom Stoppard and shared the Academy Award for Best Picture as a producer.[1][2]
Norman was born in Los Angeles, California.[3] He attended public schools in Los Angeles before enrolling at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a Master of Arts in English literature in 1964.[4]
Norman began his career in the film industry at Universal Studios in the mid-1960s, initially working in the studio mailroom.[4] He later became an in-house writer for producer Leonard Stern on the television seriesGet Smart. During the late 1960s, Norman wrote television films and episodes, includingThe Challenge (1969), one of the earlyABC Movie of the Week productions, and an episode ofMission: Impossible.[4]
He transitioned to feature films in the early 1970s withOklahoma Crude (1973), directed by Stanley Kramer.[4] Additional screenwriting credits includeZandy’s Bride (1974),The Killer Elite (1976),Breakout (1975), andThe Aviator (1985), based on the novel by Ernest Gann.[4] In 1995, he was among the writers hired to revise the screenplay forCutthroat Island.[4]
In 1998,Shakespeare in Love, directed by John Madden, was released. The film received multiple honors, including Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture.[5]
Norman has published works of fiction and nonfiction, including the novelsBike Riding in Los Angeles,Oklahoma Crude, andFool’s Errand, as well asWhat Happens Next?: A History of Hollywood Screenwriting (2007).[6]
