Callie Khouri

Her other films include Mad Money, released in 2008, and the biopic Respect in 2021. She also created the series Nashville, which premiered on ABC in 2012 to strong reviews, and ran for six seasons. Carolyn Ann (Callie) Khouri was born in San Antonio, Texas, but was brought up in Kentucky. She is the daughter of a Lebanese-American father and her family name means priest in Arabic. Khouri's interest in theater arts began when she took part in high school plays. Following her graduation from St Mary High School in Paducah, Kentucky, she studied landscape architecture at Purdue University before changing her major to drama. Khouri dropped out of Purdue and moved to Los Angeles, where she waited tables and studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and with acting teacher Peggy Feury. She soon realized that being an actress was not her destiny: "I can't stand people looking at me," said Khouri. In 1985, she took her first step toward “film production by pursuing a position as a commercial and music video production assistant.” From 1996 to 1998, and from 2000 to 2002, Khouri served on the Writers Guild of America board of directors; she sat on the board of trustees of the Writer's Guild Foundation from 2001 to 2004. She was a member of Hollywood Women's Political Committee, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting Women's Media Watch Project.