Tucker Max

Tucker Max was born in Atlanta, GA. He graduated with highest honors from the University of Chicago in 1998 and received an academic scholarship to Duke Law School, where he graduated in 2001. In his mid-20s, he became somewhat of a media sensation because of his blog, www.tuckermax.com, which he started in 2002 to chronicle his hard-core partying, drinking binges, and sexual escapades. He originally emailed these encounters to his friends who forwarded them to a few hundred more. Max developed quite a huge following among college students, both male and female, who lapped up his vivid stories of the countless times he drank himself into a stupor and his no-holds-barred accounts of how he insulted his friends and embarrassed his sexual conquests.The blog, which was getting about a million hits, also caught the attention of Hollywood TV executives. They began working with the nefarious party boy on a series similar to "Sex and the City" (HBO, 1998-2004) but from a male point of view. In 2006, Comedy Central signed Max up for a series, but the project never panned out, reportedly due to a conflict with Sony about feature film rights. Not surprisingly, Max garnered his fair share of critics who wanted nothing more than to discredit him, insisting he fabricated all his stories. The law school grad also found himself embroiled in litigation; most notably with Katy Johnson, Miss Vermont 1999. In May 2003, Johnson sued Max, claiming, among other things, invasion of privacy because he posted detailed accounts of their brief relationship on his blog. As a result, Max was ordered to take down all his posts involving Johnson and was barred from disclosing any more information about her. Two months later, Johnson voluntarily dismissed her lawsuit against Max and his stories about the former beauty queen immediately went back online.Max's legions of fans went wild when he crafted his ribald short stories into the memoir, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. The book was thick with profanity, contained even more detailed accounts of carnal knowledge, and revealed Max's method of rating women on a scale from "common-stock pig" to "super hottie." The "fratire" made The New York Times Bestseller List for more than 100 weeks and reportedly sold close to a million copies in its first year. It also made Max a finalist for Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People" list for 2009 and one of the limited genre's most famous authors.After making a name for himself on the Web and then in the literary world, Max then set out to conquer the big screen. Armed with a mere $7 million budget (from Darko Entertainment) and with little experience in professional moviemaking, Max co-wrote and produced the book's film adaptation, "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell." Played out as a series of vignettes, the film followed Tucker (Matt Czuchry) and his buddies who travel to Salem, NC to attend a bachelor party. Their journey, as expected, is laced with not the inevitable binge drinking incidents and several close encounters with strippers.Max went on a coast-to-coast tour promoting the film to rowdy college students. While his avid fans welcomed him with open arms, throngs of protesters tried to rain on his parade, accusing Max's film of promoting a "culture of rape" and that it dehumanizes women. In spite of the attacks, Max remained unfazed, maintaining that while the film did contain an unadulterated amount of drunken sex, it did not have any scenes condoning rape. In spite of all the buzz and controversy that surrounded the movie, it tanked at the box office. Critics were not impressed either and quickly relegated Max's movie to the DVD rental bin.