Rex Pickett is a critically acclaimed author, best known for his novel Sideways, which was adapted into the Oscar-winning film of the same title. Born in California, Rex grew up in San Diego and attended the University of California at San Diego, where he graduated summa cum laude with a major in Special Projects.
In the 1980s, Rex moved to Los Angeles to attend USC's graduate film school, but he was disappointed with their conservative approach to filmmaking. Instead, he and his then-wife, Barbara Schock, made two independent feature films, California Without End and From Hollywood to Deadwood. Rex wrote, directed, and edited both films, which were well-received at film festivals.
Rex continued to work in the film industry, writing scripts for hire and on spec. He was the last writer on David Fincher's first feature, Alien III, and wrote the screenplay for the film The Road Back. He also adapted the novel Striking it Rich and wrote a pilot for HBO.
In the mid-1990s, Barbara Schock enrolled in the American Film Institute's graduate film school, and Rex wrote all three of her first-year shorts. Barbara's thesis film, My Mother Dreams the Satan's Disciples in New York, written by Rex, won numerous awards, including the 2000 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short.
Rex then turned his attention to prose writing, marrying his love of film to the long-form style of the novel. He wrote a mystery titled La Purisima, which attracted the attention of publishing agents and led to the publication of his signature work, the novel Sideways.
In 2003, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor adapted Rex's novel into a film, which went on to win numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Screenplay Adaptation. Rex has since written a sequel, titled Vertical, which won the Independent Publisher Book Award for Best Fiction.
In 2011, Rex adapted his novel Sideways into a theatrical production, which premiered at the Ruskin Group Theater and later opened at the La Jolla Playhouse. The play broke all attendance records for a non-musical play in the La Jolla Playhouse's 30-year history and is now headed to either Broadway or London.
Rex has also written a third book in the Sideways series, set in Chile, and his papers are archived at the Mandeville Special Collections in the Theodore Geisel Library at his alma mater, UCSD.
