John Ridley

John Ridley
Ridley at the in 2013.
Born	John Ridley IV October 1965 (age 51) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
Alma mater	New York University
Occupation	Screenwriter Film director Novelist Television writer Television director
Years active	1993–present
Notable work	12 Years a Slave American Crime
Spouse(s)	Gayle
Children	2
Parent(s)	John Ridley III

John Ridley IV (born October 1965) is an American screenwriter, film director, novelist, and showrunner, known for 12 Years a Slave, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Ridley was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was raised from age 7 in Mequon, Wisconsin, with an ophthalmologist father, John Ridley, III, and a mother, Terry Ridley, who was a special education teacher for Milwaukee Public Schools. He has two sisters and is the middle sibling.

Ridley graduated from Homestead High School in Mequon, Wisconsin in 1982. He enrolled in Indiana University but transferred to New York University. Ridley is Christian.

Following college, Ridley performed standup comedy in New York City, with appearances on a David Letterman late-night talk show and The Tonight Show. Moving to Los Angeles in 1990, he began writing for such television sitcoms as Martin, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and The John Larroquette Show.

After both writing and directing his film debut, the 1997 crime thriller Cold Around the Heart, he and Oliver Stone co-adapted Ridley's first novel, Stray Dogs (still unpublished when Stone bought the rights) into the 1997 Stone-directed film U Turn, which was released slightly earlier than Cold Around the Heart. Ridley went on to write the novels Love Is a Racket and Everybody Smokes in Hell. His novel Spoils of War was adapted into the 1999 David O. Russell-directed Three Kings. Ridley's original script was rewritten by Russell and Ridley, with Ridley receiving a "story by" credit negotiated among himself, Russell, and the releasing studio, Warner Bros. Ridley then became a writer and a supervising producer on the NBC crime drama Third Watch. His other novels are The Drift, Those Who Walk in Darkness, and A Conversation with the Mann. He also wrote the graphic novel The American Way.