Matthew Weiner
Born	1965 Baltimore, Maryland
Other name(s)	Matt Weiner
Occupation	Screenwriter, television producer, and director

Matthew Weiner (born 1965)^[1] is an American writer, director and producer of television drama. He is the creator, executive producer, head writer, and show runner of the AMC television series Mad Men. He is also noted for his work on the HBO series The Sopranos, on which he served as a writer and producer during the show's fifth and sixth seasons. Weiner has received six Emmy Awards for his work on Mad Men and The Sopranos.^[2]

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life and education 1.2 Early career 2 Mad Men 3 Personal life 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life and education

Weiner was born in 1965 in Baltimore to a Jewish-American family, attended The Park School of Baltimore and grew up in Los Angeles.^[3] He enrolled in the College of Letters at Wesleyan University, studying literature, philosophy, and history and earned an MFA from the University of Southern California School of Cinema and Television.^[4][5]

[edit] Early career

Weiner began his screenwriting career as an uncredited joke-writer for the short-lived Fox sitcom Party Girl. He later went on to work as a writer and producer on The Naked Truth and Andy Richter Controls the Universe.^[4][5] Weiner wrote the pilot of Mad Men in 2000 as a spec script while working as a staff writer on Becker. The Sopranos creator and executive producer David Chase offered Weiner a job as a staff writer on his show after being impressed by the script.

Weiner served as a writer and producer on The Sopranos during its final three seasons. He wrote or co-wrote a dozen episodes, including the Emmy Award-nominated episodes "Unidentified Black Males" (co-written with Terence Winter) and "Kennedy and Heidi" (co-written with David Chase). He received two Emmy Awards as a producer of The Sopranos — one for the show's fifth season in 2004 and one for the second part of the show's sixth season in 2007.

In addition to writing and producing, he acted in two episodes, "Two Tonys" and "Stage 5" as mafia expert Manny Safier, author of The Wise Guide to Wise Guys, on tv news broadcasts within the show.

Weiner also spent the hiatus between the two seasons teaching at his alma mater, the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, where he taught an undergraduate screenwriting seminar on Rewrites for the Fall 2004 semester. Weiner frequently demonstrated rewriting techniques by showcasing several drafts of an unproduced pilot he had written several years prior. This would eventually become the pilot episode of the critically acclaimed series Mad Men.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Mad Men

After The Sopranos had finished its run, Weiner began looking for a network to produce Mad Men. He presented the show to HBO and Showtime; however, both networks passed on it.^[3] He eventually pitched the series to AMC which had never produced an original dramatic television series; they picked up the show, ordering a full 13-episode season.^[1] Weiner served as show runner, executive producer, and head writer of Mad Men for its first and second season. Weiner is credited with writing or co-writing seven episodes of the first season and ten episodes of the second and directing the first and second season finales, although he had a major role in the writing and directing of every episode.^[3]

Mad Men received considerable critical acclaim and won two Golden Globes and six Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series. Weiner won the 2008 Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for the pilot episode, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". Weiner and his writing staff also won a Writers Guild of America Award for Best New Series and were nominated for the award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2008 ceremony for their work on the season.^[6][7][8] They were again nominated for the WGA award for Best Dramatic Series a second time at the February 2009 ceremony for their work on the second season.^[9]

[edit] Personal life

Weiner is married and has four sons. He currently resides in Los Angeles.^[5] Weiner was a contestant on the quiz show Jeopardy!.^[4]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Matthew Weiner at the Internet Movie Database
• Video: Matt Weiner extended interview, discussing Mad Men November 2009, SlowTV
• Talks between Lionsgate, Weiner continue

v • d • e Mad Men Creator Matthew Weiner Characters Don Draper • Betty Draper • Peggy Olson • Pete Campbell • Joan Holloway Episodes Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 Related articles Awards and nominations

v • d • e Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series David E. Kelley (1990) · David E. Kelley (1991) · Diane Frolov / Andrew Schneider (1992) · Tom Fontana (1993) · Ann Biderman (1994) · Lance A. Gentile (1995) · Darin Morgan (1996) · Stephen Gaghan / David Milch / Michael R. Perry (1997) · Bill Clark / David Milch / Nicholas Wootton (1998) · David Chase / James Manos, Jr. (1999) · Rick Cleveland / Aaron Sorkin (2000) · Mitchell Burgess / Robin Green (2001) · Robert Cochran / Joel Surnow (2002) · Mitchell Burgess / David Chase / Robin Green (2003) · Terence Winter (2004) · David Shore (2005) · Terence Winter (2006) · David Chase (2007) · Matthew Weiner (2008) · Kater Gordon / Matthew Weiner (2009)