Tim from Keene, NH, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0

A television and film writer-producer whose work reshaped both mediums: he co-created The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi, and helped develop The Simpsons into American television's longest-running scripted series. His 1983 film Terms of Endearment won him three Academy Awards in a single night — Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay — for a film he wrote, produced, and directed himself. He went on to make Broadcast News and As Good as It Gets, moving fluidly between comedy and drama across six decades of work.