Cord Jefferson

Cord Jefferson is an American writer, director, journalist, and essayist who has worked on the TV series Watchmen, Succession, The Good Place, and Master of None. He made his feature directorial debut with the 2023 comedy drama film American Fiction, which won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. He is the recipient of an Emmy Award, NAACP Image Award, and two Writers Guild of America Awards. Early life Cord Jefferson was born in Tucson, Arizona to a white mother and black father. His father is an attorney. After living outside the United States for several years until Jefferson was about five years old, the family returned to Tucson. His maternal grandfather was shocked by his daughter's choice to marry a black man, and he shut her and his grandson out of his life. Jefferson's parents divorced when he was 14 years old, after his first year of high school. He attended the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he was one of a small number of biracial and black people. His father had attended law school there. After college, Jefferson lived in Los Angeles and in Brooklyn, New York. Jefferson's mother died in 2016 of cancer. When his father needed a kidney transplant in 2009, Jefferson donated one of his, traveling to Saudi Arabia where his father lives. Jefferson wrote a personal essay on the experience, noting that he was treated for atrial fibrillation and that after surgery, he quit smoking and began to take better care of his health.