James Toback (b. on November 23, 1944, in New York City) is an American screenwriter and film director. After graduating from Harvard, Tobak intended to become a novelist but turned to journalism instead. Given an assignment for an article on football star Jim Brown, he instead wrote the 1971 book, Jim about the man. His first screenplay was the semi-autobiographical The Gambler (1974), drawing on his experiences as a college professor and a compulsive gambler. Much of the film was shot at the City College of New York, where he taught writing during the early 1970s. Toback entered the realm of directing with the 1978 film, Fingers, for which he also wrote the screenplay. Viewers and critics of the 1980s were not kind to Toback's other films, including Love and Money (1982) and The Pick-up Artist (1987). His comeback in the 1990s began with the documentary, The Big Bang, which he followed up with Bugsy (1991), Two Girls and a Guy (1997), Black and White (1999) and Harvard Man (2001). His latest film was When Will I Be Loved (2004), which starred Neve Campbell. Toback is the subject of The Outsider, Nicholas Jarecki's 2006 feature-length documentary featuring Woody Allen, Robert Downey, Jr., Harvey Keitel, Brooke Shields, and Norman Mailer. Toback married Consuelo Sarah Churchill Vanderbilt Russell, the granddaughter of the 10th Duke of Marlborough.
