Ben Mezrich
Encyclopedia
Ben Mezrich is an American author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 from Princeton
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

. He graduated magna-cum-laude with a degree in Social Studies
Committee on Degrees in Social Studies
At Harvard University the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies is the committee that runs the honors-only, interdisciplinary concentration in social science subjects for undergraduate students...

 from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1991. Some of his books have been written under the pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 Holden Scott. Mezrich attended Princeton Day School
Princeton Day School
Princeton Day School is a private coeducational day school located in Princeton Township, New Jersey, serving students in grades pre kindergarten - 12. The largest division is the Upper School , with an enrollment of approximately 400...

, in Princeton, New Jersey. He is known for his non-fiction books.

He currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

.

Written work

Mezrich is best known for his first non-fiction work, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
Bringing Down the House (book)
Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions is a book by Ben Mezrich about a group of MIT card counters commonly known as the MIT Blackjack Team. While represented as non-fiction by Mezrich and Free Press, the book contains significant fictional elements...

(ISBN 0-7432-4999-2). This book tells the story of a group of students from MIT who bet on blackjack
Blackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...

 games using a sophisticated card counting
Card counting
Card counting is a casino card game strategy used primarily in the blackjack family of casino games to determine whether the next hand is likely to give a probable advantage to the player or to the dealer. Card counters, also known as advantage players, attempt to decrease the inherent casino house...

 system, earning millions of dollars at casinos in Las Vegas
Las Vegas Strip
The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada; adjacent to, but outside the city limits of Las Vegas proper. The Strip lies within the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester...

 and other gambling centers in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...

. The story was made into the movie 21
21 (2008 film)
21 is a 2008 drama film directed by Australian director Robert Luketic and stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth, Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts, and Aaron Yoo. The film is inspired by the true story of the MIT Blackjack Team as told in Bringing Down the House, the...

, released in 2008
2008 in film
This is a list of all major films made in 2008.-Highest-grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2008...

.

In 2004, Mezrich published a new book called Ugly Americans: The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions (ISBN 0-06-057500-X). Also a nonfiction work, this book recounts the exploits of an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 named John Malcolm, who was an assistant securities trader.

In 2005 Mezrich published Busting Vegas: The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees
Busting Vegas
Busting Vegas a non-fiction book by Ben Mezrich, author of New York Times Best Seller Bringing Down the House. It describes the gambling activities of a group of MIT students who in the early 1990s made millions by using their mathematics and card skills to change the odds of blackjack in their...

(ISBN 0060575123) a semi-sequel to Bringing Down the House. The book tells the story of another student involved in a similar Blackjack team, but one that used more advanced techniques than the ones discussed in the first book.

In 2007, Mezrich published Rigged (ISBN 0061252727) which recounts a largely fictional account of the formation of what would eventually become the Dubai Mercantile Exchange
Dubai Mercantile Exchange
The Dubai Mercantile Exchange is a commodity exchange based in Dubai currently listing its flagship futures contract, DME Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract...

 by two young visionaries, one in the New York Mercantile Exchange
New York Mercantile Exchange
The New York Mercantile Exchange is the world's largest physical commodity futures exchange. It is located at One North End Avenue in the World Financial Center in the Battery Park City section of Manhattan, New York City...

 and the other in the Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...

 Ministry of Finance.

Mezrich published a new book in July 2009 about Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-creating the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chief executive and president...

, the founder of Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

, titled The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding Of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal
The Accidental Billionaires
The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal is a 2009 book by Ben Mezrich about the founding of Facebook. Co-founder Eduardo Saverin served as Mezrich's main consultant...

(ISBN 0385529376). It debuted at #4 on the New York Times Nonfiction Bestseller List, and #1 on the Boston Globe Nonfiction Bestseller List. In a recent interview on Conspiracy Worldwide Radio, Mezrich discussed his relationship with Zuckerberg and his motivation when writing the book. The Social Network
The Social Network
The Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits...

, a movie based on the book was released on 1 October 2010. It stars Jesse Eisenberg
Jesse Eisenberg
Jesse Adam Eisenberg is an American actor. He made his screen debut with the comedy-drama television series Get Real from 1999 to 2000...

 as Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Garfield
Andrew Garfield
Andrew Russell Garfield is an American-English actor who has appeared in radio, theatre, film, and television. His early roles include the films Lions for Lambs, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and Boy A, which garnered him the 2007 BAFTA Television Award for "Best Actor".Garfield achieved...

 as Eduardo Saverin
Eduardo Saverin
Eduardo P. Saverin is a Brazilian-born American internet entrepreneur and investor. Saverin is best known for co-founding Facebook, along with Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes...

. The screenplay was written by Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Benjamin Sorkin is an Academy and Emmy award winning American screenwriter, producer, and playwright, whose works include A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Social Network, and Moneyball.After graduating from Syracuse...

.

Fiction

  • Threshold (1996, ISBN 0446605212)
  • Reaper
    Reaper (novel)
    Reaper is a novel and was written by Ben Mezrich in 1998, his second novel. It deals with a "computer virus" that is hidden inside of the Telecon corporation's systems. The virus begins to go on a mad killing spree by wiping out people at their computer screens. Thus, eventually becomes a threat to...

    (1998, ISBN 0060187514)
  • Fertile Ground (1999, ISBN 0061097985)
  • Skin (a story set as an X-Files
    The X-Files
    The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...

    episode), (2000, ISBN 0061056448)
  • Skeptic (written under the pen name Holden Scott), (2000, ISBN 0312969287)
  • The Carrier (written under the pen name Holden Scott), (2001, ISBN 0312978588)
  • Rigged: The Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil, From Wall Street to Dubai (2007, ISBN 0061252727)

Non-fiction

  • Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions
    Bringing Down the House (book)
    Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions is a book by Ben Mezrich about a group of MIT card counters commonly known as the MIT Blackjack Team. While represented as non-fiction by Mezrich and Free Press, the book contains significant fictional elements...

    (2002, ISBN 0-7432-4999-2)
  • Ugly Americans: The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions (2004, ISBN 0-06-057500-X)
  • Busting Vega$: The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees
    Busting Vegas
    Busting Vegas a non-fiction book by Ben Mezrich, author of New York Times Best Seller Bringing Down the House. It describes the gambling activities of a group of MIT students who in the early 1990s made millions by using their mathematics and card skills to change the odds of blackjack in their...

    (2005, ISBN 0060575123)
  • The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal (2009, ISBN 0385529376)
  • Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History
    Sex on the Moon
    Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History is a non-fiction book by Ben Mezrich, author of New York Times Best Seller Bringing Down the House and of The Accidental Billionaires. It describes the theft and attempted sale of lunar samples plus a Martian meteorite...

    (2011, ISBN 0385533926)

Other projects

Mezrich is the co-host of season 3 of the GSN series The World Series of Blackjack
World Series of Blackjack
The World Series of Blackjack is a televised blackjack tournament created and produced by the cable network GSN. It is a closed tournament; players are either invited to play or can attempt to win a spot via a satellite tournament. Rounds are edited into 1-hour episodes and broadcast on GSN...

 and the World Blackjack Tour
World Blackjack Tour
The World Blackjack Tour is an original GSN program that premiered September 4, 2006. Broadcast from the Las Vegas Hilton, five players representing five different nations play 21 hands of blackjack for a first prize of $10,000. The show is hosted by John Fugelsang and Ben Mezrich...

. He also represented Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 as a contestant in the Sexiest Bachelor in America Pageant on Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

 in 2000. Fatal Error is a TBS
TBS (TV channel)
TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...

 premiere movie adaptation of his second book, Reaper, starring Antonio Sabato, Jr.
Antonio Sabàto, Jr.
Antonio Sabàto, Jr. is an American actor and model. Born in Italy and raised in the U.S., Sabàto first became known as a Calvin Klein model and for his role on the soap opera General Hospital. He continued appearing in films and television series throughout the 1990s and 2000s.-Early life:Sabàto...

 and Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...

. Skin was originally written as an X-Files episode. Rigged was optioned by Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban is an American business magnate and investor. He is the owner of the National Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theatres, and Magnolia Pictures, and the chairman of the HDTV cable network HDNet....

's 2929 as well as "Q" a work of fiction by Mezrich. Ugly Americans has been optioned by Summit, the screenplay was written by Robert Schenkkan
Robert Schenkkan
Robert Frederic Schenkkan, Jr. is an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor, perhaps most recognizable as the character of Lieutenant Commander Dexter Remmick in Star Trek: The Next Generation...

, Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

-winning writer of The Quiet American
The Quiet American (2002 film)
The Quiet American is a 2002 film adaptation of Graham Greene's bestselling novel of the same name. It was directed by Phillip Noyce and starred Michael Caine, George Henry Hsu, Brendan Fraser, and Do Thi Hai Yen....

, and a draft also completed by Mezrich himself.

External links


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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