Tyler Perry

About Tyler Perry

Tyler Perry (born September 13, 1969) is an American playwright, screenwriter, actor and director and producer of film and stage plays. His best-known character is Mabel "Madea" Simmons, who is a physically-imposing and overbearing, but well-intentioned, woman who serves both as comic relief and as the loud voice of conscience to the protagonists of Perry's works.

Tyler was born Emmitt R. Perry, Jr. in New Orleans, one of four children. Perry changed his first name to Tyler because of his troubled relationship with his father. His father, Emmitt, Sr., was a carpenter and construction worker, and his mother, Maxine, was a pre-school teacher and worked at the New Orleans Jewish Community Center for most of her life. His childhood in New Orleans was marked by poverty and physical abuse from his father. Perry dropped out of school when he was 16, but later went back to school to obtain his GED. Perry is a Christian.

One day while he was watching The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1992, Perry took the advice that it can be cathartic to put feelings down on paper, which inspired him to write letters of his painful childhood. These letters eventually became his plays. Perry's first foray into writing was in 1992, when he began writing a journal, in part to cope with the repercussions of abuse. He developed different characters to voice different ideas in the journal. This work eventually became the musical I Know I've Been Changed, about adult survivors of child abuse.