Dick Wolf Biography

Producer, writer. Born December 20, 1946, in New York City. Wolf attended the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation, he launched a successful career in advertising; he wrote and produced over 100 TV commercials and penned the slogans "You can't beat Crest for fighting cavities" and "I'm Cheryl, Fly Me" for National Airlines.

Wolf wrote and produced his first feature film, Skateboard, an endearing teen-flick, in 1978, and his second, Gas, in 1981.

In 1985, Wolf joined NBC's Hill Street Blues team as an executive script consultant and stayed through the show's final season, earning Emmy and Writer's Guild nominations for the episode "What are Friends For." His next feature film projects were No Man's Land, with Charlie Sheen and Randy Quaid, in 1987 and Masquesrade, with Rob Lowe and Meg Tilly (and Wolf in a cameo), in 1988.

In 1988, Wolf formed his own television production company, Wolf Films. He continued to work in the mystery vein, producing installments of Gideon Oliver, with Louis Gossett Jr., and Christine Cromwell, with Jaclyn Smith, for ABC's weekly mystery movies. Wolf created, produced, and wrote a slew of primetime drama series: Mann & Machine, H.E.L.P, Crime & Punishment, Feds, and of course, Law & Order. Law & Order has been nominated for nine Emmy awards and won one in 1997 for Best Drama Series. The series has also launched several other shows such as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

In 1992, Wolf Films produced its first feature film, a teen-driven drama called School Ties about a Jewish boy who hides his religion to fit in at a prestigious prep school in the 1950s. The film launched the careers of several promising stars, including Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, and Chris O'Donnell.

After School Ties, Wolf concentrated primarily on television, creating a Law & Order television movie, Exiled, in 1988, and in 1999, launching Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a "sibling" of Law & Order which focuses on sexually oriented crimes and their effects on the victims and the investigators. Wolf has also created D.C., a series about the lives of six young and ambitious professionals in Washington D.C.

In 2003, Dick Wolf's company produced the Academy Award-winning documentary Twin Towers, about two brothers, one a policeman and the other a fireman, who were killed in the line of duty on September 11, 2001.

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