Post by Laurence Aikens

Paris Kenneth Christopher Barclay (June 30, 1956) is a television director and producer, writer, and LGBT activist. He is a two-time Emmy Award winner and is among the busiest single-camera television directors, having directed over 160 episodes of television, for series such as NYPD Blue, ER, The West Wing, CSI, Lost, The Shield, House, Law & Order, Monk, Numb3rs, City of Angels, Cold Case, and more recently Sons of Anarchy, The Bastard Executioner, The Mentalist, Weeds, NCIS: Los Angeles, In Treatment, Glee, Smash and The Good Wife, Extant, and Manhattan, Empire, and Scandal. He worked as an executive producer and principal director for Pitch. He was tapped as the executive producer and director of the Shondaland show, Station 19, which follows a group of Seattle firefighters that exist in the Grey’s Anatomy universe and stars Jaina Lee Ortiz, Jason George, Grey Damon, Miguel Sandoval, Jay Hayden, Danielle Savre, Barrett Doss, Okierette Onadowan, and Boris Kodjoe. The show is executive-produced by Shonda Rhimes, Betsy Beers, and Krista Vernoff. He served two terms as the President of the Directors Guild of America, breaking historical ground as the first African American and first Gay man to lead the organization. Variety has listed him as “one of the 500 most influential business leaders in Hollywood.” He was born in Chicago Heights. Raised Catholic, he attended La Lumiere School, a private, college-preparatory boarding school in La Porte, Indiana. On scholarship, he was one of the first African-Americans to attend the school. He went on to Harvard College, where he was extremely active in student musical theatre productions and the a cappella singing group The Harvard Krokodiloes. During his four years there, he wrote 16 musicals, including the music for two of the annual Hasty Pudding shows. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence