![\"Mandatory](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/david-e-kelley-2-150x150.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Who on earth would have guessed that James Brown would lose his title \u201cThe Hardest Working Man in Show Business\u201d to a Wonderbread boy from Waterville, Maine?<\/p>\n
Tall, dark-haired, and full of drive, TV mogul David Kelley, 44, is creator and screenwriter of Ally McBeal<\/em>, The Practice<\/em>, Picket Fences<\/em>, Chicago Hope<\/em>, and Boston Public<\/em>. Leaving Waterville at 6 when dad Jack Kelley, then coach of Colby College\u2019s hockey team, was named coach at B.U. (Jack went on to become G.M. of the Hartford Whalers), David kept his connection with Maine when \u201cin 1969 my whole family begged me to purchase Camp Kelley here on East Pond, part of the Belgrade Lakes,\u201d says Jack. A hockey star himself as captain of Princeton\u2019s team, David spent at least one Maine summer working for the local Budweiser distributor.\u201d After graduating in 1979, \u201che went overseas and played in the Elite League of Switzerland, where his team won the league title. He was drafted 8th or 9th in the WHA draft\u201d when he was accepted into B.U. Law School (graduating in 1983),\u201d so two possible careers beckoned when he chose the law.<\/p>\n According to Television Cities, David \u201cpracticed law in Boston for 3 years at Fine & Ambrogne before getting his big break, when he caught Steven Bochco\u2019s attention with a script he\u2019d written that would later be produced as From The Hip<\/em>, starring Judd Nelson, Elizabeth Perkins, and John Hurt.\u201d Invited to submit a script for L.A. Law<\/em>, David so impressed creators Bochco and Terry Louise Fischer that he was hired as a story editor. By 1989, with Bochco\u2019s departure, David had become executive producer, writing all the episodes. Then, teaming up with Bochco, Kelley created Doogie Howser, M.D.<\/em>, followed by solo creations of the award-winning Picket Fences<\/em>, Chicago Hope<\/em>, Ally McBeal<\/em>, and The Practice<\/em>. In 1993, he married actress Michelle Pfeiffer; they have two children, Claudie Rose Kelley, 7, and John Henry Kelley, 6. \u201cWhen he\u2019s here, he never misses going to his favorite stop, Bailey\u2019s Hot Dogs,\u201d Jack laughs. \u201cHe comes every summer a week or so with his family. Michelle loves it here. She and the kids came up for a visit in early June and stayed 10 days.\u201d \u201cI love Oakland,\u201d David tells us. \u201cOur family comes to Maine to be with family. Once I\u2019m at the Pond, I like to go fishing.\u201d Beyond Boston Public<\/em>, David\u2019s newest effort is the screenplay for Pond Rules<\/em>, an upcoming film starring Burt Reynolds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Screenwriter, lawyer, hockey player, Maine enthusiast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19749,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-extras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19746"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19787,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19746\/revisions\/19787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}