Dick Wolf

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Dick Wolf

Richard A. Wolf, (born December 20, 1946, New York City), is one of American television's most respected drama series creators and is an Emmy Award-winning producer, specializing in crime dramas.

Although many assume Wolf is Jewish due to his surname, he actually was raised Roman Catholic in New York City. As a child, he was an altar boy at St. Patrick's Cathedral when Francis Cardinal Spellman was Archbishop of New York.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969, where he was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity, he started his career in advertising. He would soon become a television writing and finally a "show runner" and executive producer of Law & Order (which he created), the most successful television franchise in the history of the industry. The show has been nominated for the most consecutive Emmy Awards of any primetime drama series. He also has received awards for providing opportunities to minority actors in his television series.

Wolf serves as creator and executive producer of the three current Law & Order drama series from Wolf Films and NBC Universal Television – Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, as well as Law & Order: Trial by Jury, which was cancelled after its first season. In addition, he was the creator and executive producer of NBC's courtroom reality series Crime & Punishment, which chronicled real-life cases prosecuted by the San Diego District Attorney’s office.

Wolf's company also produced Twin Towers, the 2003 Academy Award-winning Short Documentary about two brothers, one a policeman and the other a fireman, who lost their lives in the line of duty on September 11, 2001.

Currently, Wolf is involved with the production of a theatrical film that will document the popular rock group The Doors. This project is currently in production and is expected to be completed in 2007, which will coincide with the group's 40th anniversary of their first album.

Wolf's personal honors include such awards as the prestigious Award of Excellence from the Banff Television Festival, the 2002 Creative Achievement Award from NATPE; the Anti-Defamation League’s Distinguished Entertainment Industry Award, the Leadership and Inspiration Award from the Entertainment Industries Council, the Governor’s Award by the New York Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the 1997 achievement award from the Caucus for Producers, Writers, and Directors, the 1998 Television Showman of the Year Award from the Publicist’s Guild of America, the 2002 Tribute from the Museum of Television and Radio, and a 2003 Special Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

Wolf is also an Honorary Consul general of Monaco and is actively involved in the principality’s prestigious annual Television Festival, and is its primary liaison with the entertainment community.

[edit] Quotes

"I've never understood the obsession with younger writers and dramas. Comedies I understand, but how do you write drama at 23, you haven't experienced anything. You know about 23-year-olds. It's kind of hard to write about 60 year old EADAs [Executive Assistant District Attorneys]. Only a couple of us are 60 years old so far, but there are not many 23-year-olds who can write about life-changing situations unless it's medical. That sounds weird, but there's not the mileage on the odometer to get under the surface. There are exceptions that prove the rule—Dickens wasn't bad at 23."

[In fact Charles Dickens was first published at the age of 24 (Pickwick Papers) although by the age of 27 he had become an exceptionally popular author in England.]

Wolf's least favorite of more than 350 episodes, up to this point, is the one in which the daughter of Det. Lennie Briscoe (played by Jerry Orbach) gets killed by a drug dealer. "It was exactly what the show wasn't, but Jerry has pled for years, 'Please let someone die in my arms so I can get nominated.'"