Bred Felçak

Although Ryan Murphy received the lion's share of credit for creating hit television series like "Nip/Tuck" (FX 2003-2010), "Glee" (Fox 2009-2015), and "American Horror Story" (FX 2011-), he was hardly the sole party responsible for such programs' development: Murphy's frequent collaborator Brad Falchuk was just as instrumental in bringing these edgy and provocative shows to life. With a background in science-fiction television, the writer/producer helped to inject his and Murphy's projects with the degree of innovation that has made them all such colossal pop culture benchmarks. Brad Falchuk was born in Newton, Massachusetts, raised by a medical consultant father and a mother, Nancy, who would become the president of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, in 2007. Brad's brother also vied for grandeur, founding the United Independent Party and running for Massachusetts' governor in 2014. The lone creative among his family unit, Falchuk pursued his passions with vigor, enrolling in the American Film Institute after high school, and subsequently graduating from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in 1993. Falchuk's first screen credit came almost 10 years later, when he managed a recurring gig scripting episodes for "Earth: Final Conflict" (Syndication 1997-2002) and occasional bylines on shows like "Mutant X" (Syndication 2001-04) and "Veritas: The Quest" (ABC 2003). His big break would arrive quickly thereafter, as he found a staff position writing for Ryan Murphy's hospital soap opera/thriller "Nip/Tuck" (FX 2003-2010). Murphy and Falchuk soon developed a personal and professional relationship; Falchuk graduated to the series' co-producer by Season 2, supervising producer by Season 5, and executive producer by Season 6. He directed several episodes as well. Falchuk also branched off with Murphy to create and write "Pretty/Handsome," a pilot for FX that never went to series, and the ultimately far more successful "Glee" (Fox 2009-2015), along with writer Ian Brennan. While "Glee" was a work of fiction, several elements seemed to have been drawn from Falchuk's real-life experiences. For instance, the 2009 epsiode "Wheels" borrows from Falchuk's adulthood brush with a spinal cord disorder, and the character of Ryder Lynn (played by Blake Jenner, and introduced in 2012) struggles with dyslexia, as Falchuk did as a child. Falchuk wrote and directed dozens of episodes of "Glee." During the team's tenure on the high school dramedy, they began to entertain ideas more conducive to Falchuk's history writing for the occult genre. Murphy and Falchuk eventually came up with the anthology series "American Horror Story" (FX 2011-), which tackled different horror culture tropes each season by creating new stories and characters (though often utilizing the same cast members, notably Jessica Lange). Falchuk entered the series as a co-creator and executive producer, and wrote a number of episodes. He served the same function on the horror comedy "Scream Queens" (Fox 2015-16), starring Emma Roberts and Jamie Lee Curtis. He also served as executive producer of the true-crime drama "American Crime Story" (FX 2016-).