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David T. Friendly
  • Biography

David T. Friendly

David T. Friendly has been a producer and executive in the film business for over 13 years. He produced Fox's hugely successful summer comedy, Big Momma's House, starring Martin Lawrence. Under his independent Friendly Productions banner he has also produced the drama, Here on Earth, directed by Mark Piznarski, and his other production credits include the worldwide blockbuster Dr. Dolittle, starring Eddie Murphy and directed by Betty Thomas, Out to Sea, starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, Courage Under Fire, starring Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan, directed by Ed Zwick and Daylight, starring Sylvester Stallone.

A graduate of Northwestern University, Friendly began his career as a journalist, and at 22, was named staff writer at Newsweek. Following that, he specialized in entertainment journalism at the Los Angeles Times, where he worked until 1987, when he was approached by Imagine Entertainment co-founders Brian Grazer and Ron Howard and joined Imagine as Vice President of Motion Pictures.

During his 7 years at Imagine, he was involved in all aspects of development and production and eventually rose to President of Production and was integral to many of the company's biggest hits, including Backdraft, Kindergarten Cop, The Dream Team and The Burbs and served as Executive Producer on My Girl, Greedy and The Chamber, among others.

In 1994, Friendly joined Davis Entertainment as President, where he oversaw all aspects of development and production and produced the 4 films for the company previously mentioned.

After 3 years with a first look deal at 20th Century Fox Friendly teamed with Marc Turtletaub to form a new production company, Deep River Productions.


Note: This profile was written in or before 2004.

David T. Friendly Facts

OccupationProducer

Selected Filmography

Not available.