Callie Khouri is the creator, writer, and producer of the country music drama Nashville.
Career[]
Khouri is a screenplay writer, film producer, and author of nonfiction. She also worked as an actress and waiter in Nashville, TN, and worked also as a lecturer.
While working for a company that made commercials and music videos, she began writing Thelma & Louise, her first produced screenplay. Released in 1991, it is a film about two women, Thelma, a housewife, and Louise, a waitress, who embark on a journey after Thelma nearly gets raped and Louise shoots the man and kills him. The story continues with the two women on the run from the police in an attempt to escape the consequences of their actions.
The film, based on some of her real life experiences, granted Khouri instant success and won her the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and nominated her for five others. The film also won her a Golden Globe Award and a PEN Literary Award where she also took home the London Film Critics Circle Award for Film of the Year and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. For the script, she won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen in 1992. At the Oscar ceremony she said, "For everyone who wanted to see a happy ending for Thelma & Louise, for me this is it."