Winnie Holzman
Encyclopedia
Winnie Holzman is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 dramatist, screenwriter and poet. She created the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 television series My So-Called Life
My So-Called Life
My So-Called Life is an American teen drama television series created by Winnie Holzman and produced by Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. It originally aired on ABC from August 25, 1994, to January 26, 1995 and was distributed by The Bedford Falls Company with ABC Productions. Set at the...

, which earned her an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

 nomination for writing in 1995. She also wrote for thirtysomething and Once and Again
Once and Again
Once and Again is an American television series that aired on ABC from September 21, 1999 to April 15, 2002. It depicts the family of a single mother and her romance with a single father...

.

Holzman studied English and Creative Writing at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 and graduated with a Masters in Musical Theatre Writing from New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

 in 1984. Her teachers at NYU included Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...

, Hal Prince
Hal Prince
Harold Smith Prince is an American theatrical producer and director associated with many of the best-known Broadway musical productions of the past half-century...

, Arthur Laurents
Arthur Laurents
Arthur Laurents was an American playwright, stage director and screenwriter.After writing scripts for radio shows after college and then training films for the U.S...

, Betty Comden
Betty Comden
Betty Comden was one-half of the musical-comedy duo Comden and Green, who provided lyrics, libretti, and screenplays to some of the most beloved and successful Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century...

, Adolph Green
Adolph Green
Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday...

, and Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

.

Holzman made her Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 debut in 2003 when she wrote the book
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 for the Stephen Schwartz
Stephen Schwartz (composer)
Stephen Lawrence Schwartz is an American musical theatre lyricist and composer. In a career spanning over four decades, Schwartz has written such hit musicals as Godspell , Pippin and Wicked...

 musical Wicked
Wicked (musical)
Wicked is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West , a parallel novel of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard...

, based on the novel of the same name
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, is a parallel novel published in 1995 written by Gregory Maguire and illustrated by Douglas Smith. It is a revisionist look at the land and characters of Oz from L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, its sequels, and the...

 by Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire is an American writer. He is the author of the novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and many other novels for adults and children...

. She won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical
The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical is presented by the Drama Desk, a committee which comprises New York City theatre critics, writers, and editors...

 and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical
Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical
The Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical is awarded to librettists of the spoken, non-sung dialogue, and storyline of a musical play. Eligibility is restricted to works with original narrative framework; plotless revues and revivals are ineligible...

.

Holzman has had a number of acting spots, primarily cameo roles on her own TV shows and a role as a therapist on Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm is an American comedy television series produced and broadcast by HBO, which premiered on October 15, 2000. As of 2011, it has completed 80 episodes over eight seasons. The series was created by Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, who stars as a fictionalized version of himself...

. She also had a small role in the film Jerry Maguire
Jerry Maguire
Jerry Maguire is a 1996 American romantic comedy-drama film starring Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding, Jr. It was written, co-produced, and directed by Cameron Crowe...

. She wrote and performed several personal essays at the Un-Cabaret
Un-Cabaret
Un-Cabaret is a Los Angeles-based alternative comedy organization that produces live, TV and multi-media projects, workshops and events.-History:...

 spoken word shows in Los Angeles and is featured on their CD Play the Word (Vol. 1).

Holzman is married to actor Paul Dooley
Paul Dooley
-Personal life:Dooley was born Paul Dooley Brown in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the son of Ruth Irene , a homemaker, and Peter James Brown, a factory worker. Dooley was a cartoonist as a youth and drew a strip for a local paper in Parkersburg. He joined the Navy before discovering acting while at...

, with whom she has one daughter, Savannah Dooley
Savannah Dooley
Savannah Dooley is an American screenwriter and television producer, best known as the co-creator of the television series Huge.-Early life:...

 (born 1985), who is also a writer, and with whom Winnie has collaborated on various short films. Holzman and her daughter penned a TV pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...

 based on the Sasha Paley novel Huge, which ABC Family
ABC Family
ABC Family, stylized as abc family, is an American television network, owned by ABC Family Worldwide Inc., a subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company...

 greenlit
Greenlight
To green-light a project is to give permission or a go ahead to move forward with a project. In the context of the movie and TV businesses, to green-light something is to formally approve its production finance, thereby allowing the project to move forward from the development phase to...

 in January 2010 with a direct-to-series order. Huge
Huge (TV series)
Huge is a short lived American drama series that aired on the ABC Family television network. The series is based on the young-adult novel of the same name by Sasha Paley. The hour-long drama series revolves around eight teens sent to a summer weight-loss camp called Camp Victory...

premiered in late June 2010. The series was cancelled on October 4, 2010 due to low ratings compared with the network's other summer hits.

Writing Credits

  • The Wonder Years
    The Wonder Years
    The Wonder Years is an American television comedy-drama created by Carol Black and Neal Marlens. It ran for six seasons on ABC from 1988 through 1993. The pilot aired on January 31, 1988 after ABC's coverage of Super Bowl XXII....

    (1990) (TV)
  • thirtysomething (1990-1991) (TV)
  • My So-Called Life
    My So-Called Life
    My So-Called Life is an American teen drama television series created by Winnie Holzman and produced by Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. It originally aired on ABC from August 25, 1994, to January 26, 1995 and was distributed by The Bedford Falls Company with ABC Productions. Set at the...

    (1994-1995) (TV) (Creator)
  • 'Til There Was You
    'Til There Was You
    'Til There Was You is a 1997 American romantic drama film directed by Scott Winant. The screenplay, written by Winnie Holzman, traces thirty-odd years in the parallel lives of two people whose intertwined paths finally converge when their mutual interest in a community project brings them...

    (1997)
  • Once and Again
    Once and Again
    Once and Again is an American television series that aired on ABC from September 21, 1999 to April 15, 2002. It depicts the family of a single mother and her romance with a single father...

    (1999-2002) (TV)
  • Wicked
    Wicked (musical)
    Wicked is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West , a parallel novel of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard...

    (2003) (Stage)
  • Huge
    Huge (TV series)
    Huge is a short lived American drama series that aired on the ABC Family television network. The series is based on the young-adult novel of the same name by Sasha Paley. The hour-long drama series revolves around eight teens sent to a summer weight-loss camp called Camp Victory...

    (2010) (TV) (Creator)

Acting Credits

  • thirtysomething as "Sherry Eisen" (1990) (TV)
  • Major Dad
    Major Dad
    Major Dad is an American sitcom created by Richard C. Okie and John G. Stephens that originally ran from 1989 to 1993 on CBS, starring Gerald McRaney as Major John D. MacGillis and Shanna Reed as his wife Polly...

    as "Mrs. Burns" (1992) (TV)
  • My So-Called Life
    My So-Called Life
    My So-Called Life is an American teen drama television series created by Winnie Holzman and produced by Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. It originally aired on ABC from August 25, 1994, to January 26, 1995 and was distributed by The Bedford Falls Company with ABC Productions. Set at the...

    as "Cathy Kryzanowski" (1994) (TV)
  • Jerry Maguire
    Jerry Maguire
    Jerry Maguire is a 1996 American romantic comedy-drama film starring Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding, Jr. It was written, co-produced, and directed by Cameron Crowe...

    as "Women's Group Member" (1996)
  • Love American Style as "Miss Hepker" (1999) (TV)
  • Once and Again
    Once and Again
    Once and Again is an American television series that aired on ABC from September 21, 1999 to April 15, 2002. It depicts the family of a single mother and her romance with a single father...

    as Shelley (2000-2002) (TV)
  • Roswell
    Roswell (TV series)
    Roswell is an American science fiction television series developed, produced, and co-written by Jason Katims. The series debuted on October 6, 1999 on The WB and moved to UPN for the third season. The last episode aired May 14, 2002...

    as "Madame Vivian" (2000-2002) (TV)
  • Hopeless Pictures
    Hopeless Pictures
    Hopeless Pictures is an American animated comedy series starring the voice of Friends actress Lisa Kudrow, Seinfeld guest actor Bob Balaban, and produced and broadcast by the IFC. The cartoon follows fictional film producer Mel Wax, voiced by Michael McKean, in a spoof of the Hollywood movie industry...

    as "Actress" (2005) (TV)
  • Curb Your Enthusiasm
    Curb Your Enthusiasm
    Curb Your Enthusiasm is an American comedy television series produced and broadcast by HBO, which premiered on October 15, 2000. As of 2011, it has completed 80 episodes over eight seasons. The series was created by Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, who stars as a fictionalized version of himself...

    as "Dr. Salvin" (2007) (TV)
  • Checkmate
    Checkmate (film)
    -Cast:*Ankush Choudhary*Swapnil Joshi*Rahul Mehendale*Sonali Khare*Sanjay Narvekar*Anand Abhyankar*Vinay Apte...

    as "Mrs. Sappington" (2009) (TV)

External links

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