David Benioff | |
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Benioff in 2016
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Born |
David Friedman September 25, 1970 New York City, New York |
Alma mater |
Dartmouth College The Collegiate School Trinity College Dublin University of California, Irvine |
Occupation | Novelist, screenwriter, television producer, director |
Spouse(s) | Amanda Peet (m. 2006) |
Children | 3 |
Parent(s) | Stephen Friedman |
David Benioff (born David Friedman; September 25, 1970) is an American novelist, screenwriter, television producer and director. He is the co-creator and showrunner of the widely acclaimed award-winning HBO series Game of Thrones.
Benioff was born David Friedman in New York City, to a Jewish family. He is the son of Barbara (Benioff) and Stephen Friedman, who is a former head of Goldman Sachs. He is a distant cousin of Marc Benioff. As an adult, he uses the last name to Benioff, his mother's maiden name, to avoid confusion with other writers named David Friedman. He is the youngest of three children. He grew up in Manhattan, first in Peter Cooper Village, then on 86th Street where he spent most of his childhood, before eventually moving near the U.N. headquarters when he was sixteen.
He is an alumnus of The Collegiate School and of Dartmouth College. While at Dartmouth College, he was a member of Phi Delta Alpha Fraternity and the Sphinx Senior Society. After graduating in 1992, he worked for a time as a club bouncer in San Francisco, became a high school English teacher at Poly Prep in Brooklyn, New York City for two years, and served as the school's wrestling coach. Benioff became interested in pursuing an academic career, and went to Trinity College Dublin in 1995 for a one-year program to study Irish literature, and while in Dublin he met D.B. Weiss, who would later become his collaborator. He wrote a thesis on Samuel Beckett while at Trinity College, but decided against a career in academia after writing the thesis. He worked as a radio DJ in Moose, Wyoming for a while. He then attended the University of California Irvine, where he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing in 1999.