Darren Star

Darren Star is an American television writer, producer, and director whose series helped define several eras of prime-time and streaming culture. He was born Darren Bennett Star on July 25, 1961, in Potomac, Maryland, and studied at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Star's breakthrough came with Beverly Hills, 90210, which he co-created with producer Aaron Spelling and writer E. Duke Vincent. The Fox teen drama premiered in 1990 and followed twins Brandon and Brenda Walsh after their family moved from Minnesota to affluent Beverly Hills. Its storylines addressed sex, drugs, alcoholism, pregnancy, racism, and other issues unusual for a glossy teen soap, while establishing actors including Jason Priestley, Shannen Doherty, Luke Perry, and Jennie Garth.

He then created Melrose Place, a 1992 spin-off of Beverly Hills, 90210 that shifted attention to young adults living in a Los Angeles apartment complex. Initially centered on characters such as Alison Parker and Billy Campbell, the series became known for increasingly extravagant betrayals, affairs, murders, and psychological twists. Star also created Central Park West, a short-lived 1995 CBS drama, and wrote for or developed other television projects before making his most influential move into premium cable.

In 1998, HBO premiered Sex and the City, based loosely on Candace Bushnell's newspaper columns and book. Star served as creator and executive producer, shaping the series around columnist Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, and her friends Samantha Jones, Charlotte York, and Miranda Hobbes. Set in New York, the comedy-drama examined dating, friendship, sex, marriage, and female independence through Carrie's narrated perspective and fashion-focused urban life. It ran for six seasons, ending in 2004, and won multiple Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series for its sixth season. Its success produced two theatrical films, released in 2008 and 2010, and later the sequel series And Just Like That..., which premiered on Max in 2021.

Star's later work continued his interest in sharply defined social worlds. He co-created Younger, which premiered on TV Land in 2015 and starred Sutton Foster as Liza Miller, a forty-year-old divorced mother who pretends to be twenty-six to re-enter publishing. He also created Netflix's Emily in Paris, launched in 2020, about American marketing executive Emily Cooper, played by Lily Collins, whose job transfers her to Paris. The show earned Emmy nominations for comedy series and became a Netflix success despite criticism of its idealized depiction of French life.