Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Benjamin Sorkin is an American producer, playwright and screenwriter. His works comprise of The West Wing, The Newsroom, Studio 60 on the Sunset Trip, The Social Network, Charlie Wilson’s War, The American President, Moneyball, Steve Jobs, and a television series on Sports, A Few Good Men and The Farnsworth Invention. Benjamin Sorkin’s trademark monologues and rapid-fire dialogues are complemented by Thomas Schlamme’s iconic directing technique known as the “Walk and Talk”. Sorkin was born in the city of Manhattan, New York, to a Jewish family, and was raised in the suburb of Scarsdale. His father was a copyright lawyer and his mother, a school teacher. His father had fought in the Second World War. Sorkin’s brother and elder sister went onto become good lawyers. His grandfather was the founding member of the ILGWU, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. Sorkin took a keen interest in acting at an early stage and before he reached his teenage, his parents had started taking him for shows like That Championship Season and ‘Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’. He attended the Scarsdale School, where he was actively involved in the theater club. He played the role of General Bullmoose for the drama, Li’l Abner, in his eighth grade. He also played the role of Sir Harry in the drama, Once Upon a Mattress. He served as the president of the Scarsdale High School in the year 1979. In the same year, Sorkin joined the Syracuse University. In the initial semester at the University, he failed a class. It became a setback and Sorkin was yearning to become an actor.

The drama department was stern at not allowing failed students to take the stage. Sorkin’s inspiration has been his drama teacher, Arthur Storch, who instilled the confidence in him that he has capacity beyond his limits. He was also the disciple of Lee Strasberg, who always encouraged him to keep a “never say die” attitude. In the early 1990s, Sorkin used to do uncredited jobs like a script doctor for several movies. He wrote some for Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery in The Rock. He also worked for Excess Baggage, which was a comedy flick, based on the story of a girl, who insanely stages her kidnapping, just to get the attention of her father. He further re-wrote some scenes of Enemy of the State, in which Will Smith has acted. He collaborated with Warren Beatty Warren Beatty, whose full name is Henry Warren Bea >> Read More... on various scripts, such as ‘Bulworth’. He was hired by his friend, Mr. Beatty, to re-write the script of Ocean of Storms. Later, Sorkin divulged to Charlie Rose, an American television interviewer, to set up the show Saturday Night Live Saturday Night Live or popularly called as NBC&#39 >> Read More... . Sorkin says that his show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, had many characters that were based on actual people, and it had autobiographical elements. Sorkin got a divorce from his wife, Julia Bingham, in 2005, due to former’s drug abuse and workaholic habits. Both have a daughter together named Roxy. Sorkin was several times arrested publicly for drug abuse and was even sent to rehabilitation centers. Later, he dated an actress, Kristin Chenoweth, and a popular columnist, Maureen Dowd.