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What is Dustin Lance Black’s Net Worth?
Dustin Lance Black is a renowned American screenwriter, film and television producer as well as a director who has a net worth of $10 million. Dustin Lance Black is known for writing the film, “Milk,” for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Early Life
Black was born on June 10, 1974 in Sacramento County, California. After he was born, Black’s father left the family and his mother, Roseanna, who had polio at the time. He was raised primarily by his mother in a Mormon household in San Antonio, Texas and then in Salinas, California. Black struggled with the awareness that he was gay from a young age, especially considering the religious environment surrounding him. He didn’t openly discuss his sexuality until his senior year of college.
Black attended North Salinas High School where he began working in theater at The Western Stage in Salinas. After high school, he enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles in the School of Theater, Film, and Television. During that time, he apprenticed with stage directors, worked on theater lighting crews, and also began doing a bit of acting work. He graduated with honors in 1996.
Career
Black continued working in theater following his graduation and also began focusing much of his time on writing. In 2000, Black wrote and directed “The Journey of Jared Price,” a gay romance film. The same year, he also wrote and directed “Something Close to Heave,” a gay coming-of-age short film. The following year, he directed and was also the subject of the documentary, “On the Bus.” The film is about a Nevada road trip and adventure at Burning Man taken by six gay men.
In part due to his background of being raised Mormon, Black was hired to be a writer on the HBO drama series, “Big Love,” which was about a polygamous family. He stayed on the show in either a writing, editing, or producing capacity for three seasons.
He also began researching the life of Harvey Milk, having been inspired by Rob Epstein’s documentary, “The Times of Harvey Milk,” when he was in college. He met with many of Milk’s former aides and began to write a screenplay about Milk’s life. Gus Van Sant signed on to direct the film, which starred Sean Penn and was titled “Milk.” The film premiered in 2008. In 2009, Black won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay at the 81st Academy Awards.
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Black had also made the film “Pedro” in 2008, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and profiled the life of AIDS activist and reality television personality, Pedro Zamora. In 2010, he wrote and directed the film “Virginia” starring Jennifer Connelly. The same year, he narrated “8: The Mormon Proposition,” a documentary detailing the involvement of the Mormon Church in California’s Proposition 8, which dealt with gay marriage.
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In 2011, he wrote the screenplay for “J. Edgar,” a biographical drama directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Leonardo DiCaprio. He also wrote the play “8,” which portrayed the actual events in the “Hollingsworth v. Perry” trial, the trial that led to the overturn of California’s Proposition 8. It was written and performed using original transcripts from the trial as well as journalist records. Black created the play as a response to the fact that the federal court had refused to allow release of video recordings of the trial. Black wanted to give the public a true account of what had happened in the courtroom. The play opened in New York City and was later broadcast worldwide on YouTube from the Ebell of Los Angeles Theatre in 2012. The American Foundation of Equal Rights and the organization Broadway Impact, the two sponsors of “8,” have since released the licensed the play for readings nationwide on college campuses and community theaters.
In 2017, Black worked on the miniseries “When We Rise,” which covers the LGBTQ civil rights movement in the United States. In 2022, he also worked as a writer and director on several episodes of “Under the Banner of Heaven,” a crime drama which details the true events of a double murder within the Mormon community and is based on the book of the same name. He also wrote the screenplay for “Rustin,” which tells the story of gay civil rights activist, Bayard Rustin.
Personal Life
In the spring of 2013, Black started dating British Olympic champion, Tom Daley. They announced their engagement in October of 2015 and married in May of 2017 at Bovey Castle in Devon, England. In February of 2018, they announced they were expecting their first child together via surrogacy. They welcomed their son later that year. Because they faced some criticism for their choice of having a child via surrogacy, they started a podcast together in which the discussed some of the ethical issues surrounding surrogacy. They live in Southwark, London.
Black has been celebrated by many LGBTQ publications and organizations. He was the top entry on a list of openly gay influential people in the “Forty Under 40” list published by “The Advocate” in June of 2009. He was also featured on the cover of the magazine. The same year, he was one of the Official Grand Marshals in the 2009 NYC LGBT Pride March.
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