Edward Zwick Marshall Herskovitz
Edward Zwick Born October 8, 1952, Chicago Illinois
Zwick began directing and acting in high school. He trained as an apprentice at the Academy Festival in Lake Forest, and, while studying literature at Harvard, he continued writing and directing for the theatre. Upon graduation, he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship to study abroad with some of the major innovative theatre companies. In Europe, he supplemented his fellowship income by writing magazine articles and later he worked for Woody Allen in Paris on the film Love and Death.
Zwick was accepted as a Directing Fellow at the American Film Institute, where he directed the short film Timothy and the Angel, which won first place in the student film competition at the 1976 Chicago Film Festival and caught the attention of the producers of the television series, Family. He was invited to write an episode and subsequently became the show's story editor. He then began directing episodes, and eventually was named producer for the final season.
Zwick later directed such television films and pilots as Paper Dolls, Having It All, Making Out and The Outsiders. For his work on the television movie Special Bulletin (as Director, Producer and Co-writer), Zwick received two Emmy Awards. It also marked the beginning of his collaboration with Marshall Herskovitz, with whom he then created our television show, thirtysomething. Later, they would work together on the series My So-Called Life, (1994-1995) Relativity ( 1996-1997) and their most recent hit Once and Again, (1999-2002).
Zwick began his feature film career with About Last Night… He then went on to direct the Academy Award-winning film Glory. Following that, he directed Leaving Normal and the hit film Legends Of The Fall, which won an Oscar for Cinematographer John Toll. Zwick then reteamed with Denzel Washington in two timely and relevant films, Courage Under Fire and The Siege. To date, Zwick has been honored with three Emmy Awards, the Humanitas Prize, the Writers Guild of America Award, two Peabody Awards, a Directors Guild of America Award and the Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Award from the American Film Institute.
Marshall Herskovitz Born February 23, 1952, Philidelphia, Pennsylvania
A leading TV writer, producer and director who segued to feature directing with "Jack the Bear" (1993), Marshall Herskovitz began his career as a writer on the TV series "Family", "The White Shadow" and "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers". He went on to collaborate with fellow AFI alumnus Edward Zwick on "Special Bulletin" (NBC, 1983), a critically-esteemed, TV-movie about nuclear terrorism which earned him his first two Emmy awards. In 1985, Herskovitz and Zwick formed the Bedford Falls Company. Their first project under the banner was our beloved emmy award winning drama "thirtysomething" (ABC, 1987-91). The two subsequent series produced by the Bedford Falls Company, My So-Called Life" (ABC, 1994-95) and "Relativity" (ABC, 1996-97), both received critical acclaim, but lasted less than a full season. Herskovitz returned to the big screen with the period romance "Dangerous Beauty" (1998), starring Catherine McCormack and Rufus Sewell. He continues to work with Ed Zwick, and both appeared in 2001 in a Thirtysomething seminar with BRAVO for a reunion of the show
In 1991, a book of nine scripts from the series Thirtysomething was published. There were a few passages written by the creators and writers in the book describing the process of how TS came to be. At the end of the preface, after the descriptions of the characters in the series, Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick (co-creators of the show ended the section with these words:
"So that's who they were. Michael and Elliot hadn't lost their business so Miles Drentell didn't exist. Elliot and Nancy hadn't split up, so they didn't need to get back together. And so on. But people change, so they've changed. These days Hope is crusading, Gary's a father, and Nancy's sick. Next week is next week.
And whatever next week's stories are, they'll likely be written by those whose work is collected in this book. They are, at once, our employees, our peers, our scourges, and our wives, not necessarily in that order. After all this time, we've come to feel like hosts at a party that refuses to end. As it's worn on, secrets have been spilled, and confidences, shared, and we all have to be at work in the morning. Bet there's still some wine left, and a little cold pizza, and you can sleep on the couch if you want to..."
Marshall Herskovitz
and Edward Zwick
