Tyler Perry (𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 September 13, 1969, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.) is an American playwright, actor, screenwriter, producer, and director whose works—in which he often portrayed the character Mabel (“Madea”) Simmons, an outspoken grandmother—combined humour, religious wisdom, and personal triumph.
Perry had a difficult 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥hood. He grew up with a physically abusive father (he later changed his name to disassociate himself from his father), attempted suicide, and dropped out of high school, although he eventually passed a high-school equivalency exam. After he heard television personality Oprah Winfrey suggest that writing down personal experiences could be cathartic, Perry began to keep a journal, which evolved into his first play, I Know I’ve Been Changed. Perry worked a number of odd jobs to raise money for its first staging, which took place in Atlanta in 1992. His self-funded production—in which he also starred—received almost no attention and sent him into extreme poverty. In 1998, however, he restaged the play and sold out performances for eight days in a row before moving it to Atlanta’s nationally acclaimed Fox Theatre. Perry’s work was distinct in its blend of traditional theatre with African American Southern entertainment, which had been largely untapped by larger commercial enterprises.
Perry’s second stage production, a 1999 adaptation of Woman, Thou Art Loosed! by T.D. Jakes, grossed more than $5 million in five months. Perry’s trademark character, Madea, was created in his play I Can Do Bad All by Myself (2000; film 2009). The brutally honest, rambunctious gun-toting grandmother, whose name comes from the frequent African American contraction of “Mother Dear,” was played by Perry in drag. She was a recurring figure in a number of his later plays, such as Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2001; film 2005), Madea’s Family Reunion (2002; film 2006), Madea’s Class Reunion (2003), Madea Goes to Jail (2005; film 2009), Madea’s Big Happy Family (2010; film 2011), A Madea Christmas (2011; film 2013), and Madea’s Neighbors from Hell (2014).
Perry moved to feature films in 2005 by writing, producing, and acting in a screen version of Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Its feel-good narrative, in which Madea counsels her granddaughter through a failed marriage, helped Perry gain a wider audience. He reprised the role of Madea in subsequent film adaptations of his plays, which he also produced and directed. A 2007 adaptation of his play Why Did I Get Married? (2004), an exploration of modern relationships, allowed Perry to move beyond the Madea character on-screen. He additionally began writing and directing films that were not based on previous work, such as Daddy’s Little Girls (2007) and The Family That Preys (2008).
In 2010 Perry wrote and directed Why Did I Get Married Too?, in which he also starred, and For Colored Girls, an adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s groundbreaking ensemble theatre piece For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf (1975). He later wrote and directed himself in Good Deeds (2012), a drama about a CEO seeking personal fulfillment; Madea’s Witness Protection (2012); Boo! A Madea Halloween (2016) and its sequel (2017); A Madea Family Funeral (2019); and A Madea Homecoming (2022). Tyler Perry’s Temptation (2013), which Perry adapted from his play The Marriage Counselor (2008), offered another tale of romantic tumult. He then wrote and directed the uplifting The Single Moms Club (2014). His movies from 2018 included the thriller Acrimony, in which Taraji P. Henson played a wife seeking revenge against her deceptive husband, and the comedy Nobody’s Fool, which starred Tiffany Haddish as a recently paroled ex-convict who helps her straitlaced sister with her love life. A Fall from Grace (2020), about an abused woman accused of 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁ing her husband, aired on Netflix.
Tyler Perry, 2012.
Beginning with Star Trek (2009), Perry occasionally accepted acting roles in others’ films. For instance, in Alex Cross (2012), an adaptation of a James Patterson novel, he portrayed the titular detective, a role originated on-screen by Morgan Freeman. He later appeared as a defense attorney in David Fincher’s thriller Gone Girl (2014) and played villainous scientist Baxter Stockman in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016). Perry was then cast as Secretary of State Colin Powell in Vice (2018), a biopic of Dick Cheney, vice president in the administration of George W. Bush. His credits from 2021 included the action drama Those Who Wish Me Dead and Don’t Look Up, a satire about an impending comet strike that will destroy Earth.
Perry’s first book, Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea’s Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life (2006), was a best seller. Perry’s work also translated successfully to television with his sitcoms House of Payne (2006–12; 2020– ); Meet the Browns (2009–11), which evolved from a play (2004) and a film (2008); and For Better or Worse (2011–17), which centred on characters from Why Did I Get Married? and its sequel. The latter series was picked up by Oprah Winfrey’s OWN channel in its third season following its cancellation by TBS. Perry created several additional television shows for OWN: the soap operas The Haves and the Have Nots (2013–21) and If Loving You Is Wrong (2014–16) as well as such comedies as Love Thy Neighbor (2013–17). In 2017 Perry signed a deal with Viacom, and his subsequent shows included The Oval (2019– ), about a U.S. president and his family, and its spinoff, Ruthless (2020– ).
In 2006 he created Tyler Perry Studios, and since 2015 it has been located on a former army base in Atlanta. In 2021 Perry received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He was cited for “caring for people who are most often ignored.”
