Who: The executive producer of Sex and the City, King helped channel the neuroses of single women everywhere into a mega-hit for HBO. He's since written, directed and co-produced the two Sex and the City movies that have hit the big screen.

Backstory: Raised in an Irish Catholic home in Scranton, Pennsylvania—his mother managed a Krispy Kreme, his father was a custodian—King moved to New York as a struggling actor in the 1980s. When his acting career didn't take off, he turned to writing and decamped to Los Angeles to work on shows like Murphy Brown and Cybill. He returned to NYC in the late 1990s when he was hired by Darren Star to work as a writer on Sex and the City, the show inspired by Candace Bushnell's Observer column and book of the same name. When Star left SATC to pursue other projects, he left the series in King's hands, and he was responsible for writing, directing, and producing the hit series for the last few seasons.

After Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis departed the set of SATC in 2004, King went on to produce the short-lived Lisa Kudrow vehicle The Comeback. But while critics loved the show (Kudrow earned an Emmy nod for her work on the series), it didn't prove a hit with viewers and was canceled after just one season. King turned his attention to the stage, co-writing a one-woman play called At Least It's Pink with Ken Melman, which debuted off-Broadway in January 2007. The same year he refocused his energies on the show that minted his career. After years of will-they-or-won't-they buzz—and after Kim Cattrall held out for a better contract—the long-awaited Sex and the City movie, which King wrote, directed, and co-produced, finally hit theaters in 2008.

Recently: While SATC's first big-screen adaptation turned out to be a big hit when it was released in 2008, King didn't have as much luck the second time around. Sex and the City 2, which debuted in May 2010, earned less-than-stellar reviews from critics and proved a major disappointment at the box office, too.

On screen: King hasn't forgotten his acting dream-he occasionally pops up in cameo roles. He appeared as an HBO publicist in Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm, and cast himself as a mental patient in an episode of SATC.

Personal: King is gay and single. He lives in the West Village (just a couple of blocks from Parker) and has a home in LA, too.

True story: King's office in LA features a glass display case containing the white tutu skirt worn by Sarah Jessica Parker Parker during her first season as Carrie Bradshaw.

Vital Stats


Full Name: Michael Patrick King
Date of Birth: 09/14/1954
Place of Birth: Scranton, PA
Residences: Manhattan (West Village); Los Angeles, CA
Filed Under: Film, Television

[Photos via Getty Images]