PLAYWRIGHT, SCREENWRITER, DIRECTOR

Ambition.

David Mamet later attributed his uncanny ear for naturalistic dialogue to several influences during his youth. His father, a lawyer, was something of a semanticist, and years of piano lessons gave Mamet a feeling for the rhythms and musicality of speech. His childhood, spent in a Jewish neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, was relatively uneventful until high school, when Mamet became interested in drama while working as a volunteer at a small local theater. A job at the well-known Second City comedy club in Chicago reinforced that desire, and Mamet rejected his father's suggestion that he become a lawyer. He wrote his first play, Camel, while at Goddard College in Vermont (B.A., 1969), During his junior year Mamet studied acting in New York, quitting when he realized that he had no real acting talent. In 1970 Mamet bluffed his way into a drama-teaching job in...