A fistful of Mamet

David Mamet's vicious satire of Tinseltown, Speed-the-Plow, was nominated for a Tony when it hit Broadway in 1988. On February 13, a revival opens at the Old Vic in London Photograph: Tristram Kenton/guardian.co.uk

Kevin Spacey, the theatre's artistic director, is starring as film producer Charlie Fox ... Photograph: Tristram Kenton/guardian.co.uk

... alongside Hollywood veteran Jeff Goldblum, who shows a cat-like grace on stage Photograph: Tristram Kenton/guardian.co.uk

Speed-the-Plow was first performed at the Lincoln Center theatre on Broadway, with Madonna appearing alongside Ron Silver and Joe Mantegna Photograph: Gene Shaw/Getty

Mamet was born on November 30 1947 in Chicago, the setting for many of his plays. He once remembered: 'I grew up in a tough neighbourhood and we used to say you can get further with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word.' Photograph: Kevin Winter /Getty

David Mamet and actor Rebecca Pidgeon in Cannes in 1991, promoting the film Homicide ... Mamet married Pidgeon that year; they met when she was acting in Speed-the-Plow at the National Theatre in 1989. Pidgeon appeared in Homicide alongside Mamet regulars William H Macy and Joe Mantegna, who played cops on a murder case. Reviewing the film, critic Roger Ebert applauded the way Mamet "takes realistic speech patterns and simplifies them into a kind of hammer-and-nail poetry" Photograph: Jose Goitia/AP

Mamet is one of the few American playwrights to enjoy critical and commercial success writing screenplays in Hollywood. In the 1980s, he adapted The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Verdict for the screen, and directed and co-wrote the movie House of Games. He adapted Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley's book for The Untouchables (1987), a Prohibition-era drama starred Kevin Costner and Sean Connery as lawmen battling organised crime Photograph: Kobal

Glengarry Glen Ross remains one of David Mamet's most popular works. The 1984 play, which won the Pulitzer Prize, presents the ruthless world of real estate agents in Chicago. Jonathan Pryce led the cast in a 2007 revival at London's Apollo Theatre Photograph: Hugo Glendinning

Mamet himself directed the 1993 film of his play Glengarry Glen Ross. Jack Lemmon starred as the veteran estate agent Shelly Levene, who strives to win a lucrative sales prize. The other stars included Kevin Spacey (above) and Alec Baldwin in a role created for the film Photograph: Kobal

Written in 1992, Oleanna is Mamet's classic two-hander about a student who accuses her professor of rape. The play was presented at the Royal Court with Lia Williams and David Suchet on stage, and Harold Pinter directing Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Oleanna was also staged at London's Garrick theatre in 2004. Aaron Eckhart and Julia Stiles starred. 'Now, with two perfectly decent Hollywood actors in the lead, it seems rather cool,' wrote Michael Billington, who considered it "a clever artifice in which you are more aware than before of Mamet's manipulation" Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Mamet directs Alec Baldwin in the 2000 movie State and Main, a witty film about film-making. Baldwin plays an actor with an eye for underage girls Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext Collection

Several of Mamet's scripts revolve around con jobs and robberies. American Buffalo concerns a gang of crooks looking to filch some precious coins. The 2000 production at the Donmar Warehouse starred William H Macy and Mark Webber. Mamet and Macy have collaborated on many occasions; they co-founded the Atlantic Theater Company in 1985 Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Mamet's plays have often explored racial tension, violence and vice. Edmond pursues all three themes and was staged at the National Theatre in 2003 with Kenneth Branagh in the lead role. Edmond, which Mamet has described as a morality play about modern society, follows a Manhattanite who suffers a hellish night in the city Photograph: Manuel Harlan

William H Macy (yep, him again) starred in the 2005 film of Edmond. Mamet wrote the screenplay and the cast rounded up the writer-director's usual suspects: Julia Stiles, Joe Mantegna and Rebecca Pidgeon Photograph: PR

Although Mamet is mostly associated with intense, macho modern-day dramas, he has also essayed various period pieces. These include a film of The Winslow Boy and an adaptation of Harley Granville-Barker's Edwardian drama The Voysey Inheritance, staged at the National in 2006 with Nancy Carroll and Dominic West (above) Photograph: Tristram Kenton