Lee Daniels

Movie Director

b. December 24, 1959, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“I don't work with fear, and I don't work with actors that are fearful.”

Lee Daniels is an Academy Award nominated producer, director, screenwriter and actor.

Daniels survived a traumatic childhood. After being caught wearing his mother’s pumps, he was violently assaulted by his father. Daniels stated, “When I came out it was because I loathed my dad so much.”

Torment also followed Daniels to school. He was gay and black in a predominantly white school. “I was always told that I was nothing because I was gay,” he said.

At age 21, Daniels started a nurse-staffing agency, which he sold a year later. The sale made him a millionaire and allowed him to pursue his dream of working in the entertainment industry. He first worked as a casting director and later as a talent manager. He built a client base of Academy Award winners and nominees, most of whom later worked in Daniels’s films.

Daniels became a Hollywood force in 2001 when his production company released “Monster’s Ball,” a movie for which Halle Berry won the Oscar for Best Actress. Daniels later directed the film “Precious.” His experience as a sexually abused child inspired his direction of the film. “Precious” received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Director, and earned two Academy Awards.

In 2012 his film “The Paperboy,” with Nicole Kidman, was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2013 Daniels directed the critically acclaimed film “The Butler,” with Oprah Winfrey, Forest Whitaker, John Cusack, Jane Fonda and Mariah Carey.