John Ridley

John Ridley born 1965 in Milwaukee Wisconsin is an American film director actor and writer Ridley got his start as a standup comedian He eventually was hired as a writer for sitcoms such as The Fresh Prince of BelAir and Martin He began to concentrate on writing and wrote his first novel Stray Dogs which became the basis the 1997 film U Turn directed by Oliver Stone Ridley also provided the original script for the film Three Kings starring George Clooney Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube But his script was changed so much by director David O Russell that he only received a credit for the original story He also tried his hand at directing with the film Cold Around the Heart He is one of the creators of Urban Entertainment showcasing short films and animation from minority filmmakers including his own works the animated cartoons Undercover Brother the basis for the Undercover Brother film starring comedian Eddie Griffin and Those Who Walk in Darkness featuring the voice of rapper Lil Kim which itself was the basis of a novel of the same name written by Ridley Additionally Ridley developed Tim Storys 2002 motion picture Barbershop into the shortlived 2005 Showtime comedy Barbershop The Series Ridley was the original cohost on the MSNBC daily morning show Morning Joe upon its premiere in 2007 and was an occasional guest on the networks cancelled nightly program Scarborough Country He hosted the shortlived Movie Club with John Ridley on American Movie Classics and has written The Authority and The American Way for DC Comics He has recently become a regular guest commentator on American Public Medias Weekend America in a segment called Good News Bad News No News which reviews the weeks news He coproduced the film Bobby He wrote the play Ten Thousand Years about kamikaze pilots in World War II On the weekend of August 19 2006 John cohosted the syndicated program Ebert Roeper while film critic Roger Ebert was on medical leave On August 28 2007 it was announced that George Lucas hired him to pen the script for his upcoming World War II film Red Tails Currently December 2009 Ridley is head writer and coexecutive producer of The Wanda Sykes Show Description above from the Wikipedia article John Ridley licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia