Ryan Murphy (writer)

Ryan Patrick Murphy (born November 30, 1965) is an American film and television screenwriter, director and producer. Murphy is best known for creating/co-creating/producing a number of television series including Popular (1999–2001), Nip/Tuck (2003–10), Glee (2009–15), American Horror Story (2011–present), The New Normal (2012–13), Scream Queens (2015–present) and American Crime Story (2016–present).

Early life

Murphy grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, in an Irish Catholic family. He attended Catholic school from first through eighth grade, and graduated from Warren Central High School in Indianapolis. He has described his mother J. Andy Murphy as a "beauty queen who left it all to stay at home and take care of her two sons." She wrote five books and worked in communications for over 20 years before retiring. His father worked in the newspaper industry as a circulation director before he retired after 30 years.

After coming out as gay, Murphy saw his first therapist, who found nothing wrong with him other than being "too precocious for his own good." Murphy performed with a choir as a child, which would later inform his work on Glee. Murphy attended Indiana University, Bloomington. While at college, he was a staff member of the school newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student, and he was a member of the school's Singing Hoosiers show choir.