Multiple Emmy Award-winning director and producer Paris Barclay has worked on some of the world’s finest television shows, including: NYPD Blue, ER, The West Wing, CSI, Lost, The Shield, House M.D., Law & Order, Monk, Numb3rs, City of Angels, Cold Case, The Mentalist, Weeds, Sons of Anarchy, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Good Wife, In Treatment, and Glee.
Barclay’s immaculate work in the entertainment medium was recognized in the form of a Directors Guild of America (DGA) award for NYPD Blue as well as 10 DGA nominations. He was noted for being the first director in the history of the DGA to be nominated for a comedy series and drama series in the same year, two years in a row (2008 & 2009). Barclay also won the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Image award for Best Drama Series as co-creator, writer, and director of City of Angels and another for directing Cold Case. His MTV film Pedro was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award as well as a Humanitas Prize.
An openly gay man, Barclay was born on June 30, 1956 in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the private college preparatory institution La Lumiere School on a scholarship and was one of the very first African Americans to do so. After graduating from Lumiere, Barclay would enroll in and graduate from Harvard University. His roommate was Memoirs of a Geisha novelist Arthur Golden.
Barclay currently serves as First Vice President of the DGA. He is the first African American officer in the history of the Guild.
* Photo by Richard Berg