Alton Brown

American author, cinematographer and celebrity chef Alton Brown was born in Los Angeles and raised in Georgia. Best known as the creator and host of the successful cooking show "Good Eats" (Food Network/Cooking Channel, 1999-2012), Brown never intended on becoming a chef. A lifelong fan of movies, Brown initially intended on making movies for a living. He studied film at the University of Georgia, where he immersed himself in the techniques of filmmaking. Brown eventually settled on working behind the camera and pursued (albeit briefly) a career as a cinematographer.

He did the camerawork on a number of music videos in the late 80s and early 1990s, the most notable of which was R.E.M.'s "The One I Love" (1987). By the mid 1990s, however, Brown switched his career focus to cooking. As the legend has it, Brown was fed up with the same tired formula used on mainstream cooking shows of the era, so he decided to make one of his own. With that mindset firmly implanted, Brown left his cinematography career behind and enrolled in the New England Culinary Institute.

After graduating from the cooking school in 1997, Brown pushed ahead with his dream of bringing his own type of cooking show to television. Then in 1998 the pilot for his show, "Good Eats," was picked up by the local public broadcasting station in Chicago, WTTW. The series explored various aspects of cooking that weren't previously on cooking shows, like the science behind cooking and the use of different equipment.

In 1999 the show was picked up by the Food Network. Now with a nationwide audience, Alton Brown achieved celebrity chef status, as "Good Eats" quickly grew in popularity. During the initial 15-season run of "Good Eats," Brown also made time to appear on other cooking shows. In addition to being an expert cooking commentator on "Iron Chef America" (Food Network, 2005-2018), he also hosted the travel show "Feasting on Asphalt" (Food Network, 2006-08) and created competition series "Cutthroat Kitchen" (Food Network, 2013-17).

After "Good Eats" ended its 15 season run in 2012, Brown made a guest appearance as himself on "The Simpsons" (Fox, 1989- ) in 2015, and also served as the narrator of the reality TV series "Ridiculous Cakes" (Food Network, 2018- ). In addition to his TV work, Brown has written several widely successful books on the subject of cooking. It was on one of his book tours, in 2017, that Brown announced that "Good Eats" would be returning to the airwaves. A sequel of the series, called "Good Eats: The Return" (Food Network, 2019- ) premiered on the Food Network in August of 2019 with Brown once again serving as the show's host.