Gary Kott is an American television and advertising writer and artist. He has five pieces of his artwork, three paintings and two sculptures, held over at Smith Vargas Fine Art in Palm Springs after a successful featured-artist show there in January, 2016. His painting "Veer" has been selected by the Palm Springs Art Museum Artists Council/University of California, Riverside for a show running from March 3 through April 22, 2016. Kott's artwork has been selected for viewing at the Rancho Mirage Artists Studio Tour to be held on March 19, 2016. His recent solo show at the Cathedral City Chamber of Commerce ran for three months. Kott's "Think Stripe" show at his studio/gallery was attended by more than 150 people. A writer and supervising producer of ''

The Cosby Show ''The Cosby Show'' is an American television sitcom co-created by and starring Bill Cosby, which aired Thursday nights for eight seasons on NBC between September 20, 1984, until April 30, 1992. The show focuses on an upper middle-class Africa ...

'', Kott worked on the program during its five consecutive years of number one Nielsen ratings.

Early life and education

Raised in

Cranford, New Jersey Cranford is a township in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, located southwest of Manhattan. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 23,847, an increase of 1,222 (+5.4%) from the 2010 census count ...

, Kott graduated in 1965 from

Cranford High School Cranford High School is a four-year public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades, located in Cranford, in Union County, New Jersey, United States, and operating as the lone secondary school of the Cranford Township ...

.Bernstein, Michele W
"Gary Kott Injects Cranford Memories into Cosby Show"
''Cranford Chronicle'', June 4, 1987. Accessed September 28, 2022. "No wonder the Cougars won. Kott grew up in Cranford. He is the son of Marguerite Kott and the late Dr. Bernard Kott, and has enjoyed an almost storybook career since his graduation from Cranford High in 1965."

Career

Kott worked on Madison Avenue in the early 1970s, writing and producing dozens of national television commercials and print ads. He was a copywriter at

Ogilvy & Mather Ogilvy is a New York City-based British advertising, marketing, and public relations agency. It was founded in 1850 by Edmund Mather as a London-based advertising agency, agency. In 1964, the firm became known as Ogilvy & Mather after merging wit ...

, moved to

Young & Rubicam VMLY&R is an American marketing and communications company specializing in advertising, digital and social media, sales promotion, direct marketing and brand identity consulting, formed from the merger of VML, founded in 1992, and Young & Rubica ...

, then moved back to Ogilvy & Mather, where he served as Vice President and Creative Director.

Hollywood

In addition to his time working on ''

'', Kott has also written for other shows, including '' Fame'', ''

Remington Steele ''Remington Steele'' is an American television series co-created by Robert Butler and Michael Gleason. The series, starring Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan, was produced by MTM Enterprises and first broadcast on the NBC network from O ...

'' and '' The White Shadow''. He has received numerous accolades, including a

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...

, a

Writers Guild of America Award The Writers Guild of America Awards is an award for film, television, and radio writing including both fiction and non-fiction categories given by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America West since 1949. Eligibility ...

, a

People's Choice Award The People's Choice Awards is an American awards show, recognizing people in entertainment, voted online by the general public and fans. The show has been held annually since 1975, with the winners originally determined using Gallup Polls until ...

, an

NAACP Image Award The NAACP Image Awards is an annual awards ceremony presented by the U.S.-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) to honor outstanding performances in film, television, theatre, music, and literature. Similar to ...

, a pair of Humanitas nominations, and one

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

nomination. Kott has been a guest speaker at the Museum of Broadcasting in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morg ...

Theater

Kott has written numerous plays, with performances at

The Actors Studio The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founde ...

in New York, The Grove Street Playhouse and The Santa Monica Playhouse.

Gary Kott's Creative Warehouse

In 2011, Kott launche
Gary Kott's Creative Warehouse
a website devoted to collecting his work, including art, stories and plays. In addition to writing a series of blog entries on the site, Kott has also introduced the concept of the
Storynar
" a live webcast of the reading of an original story.

References

External links

*
Gary Kott's Creative Warehouse
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kott, Gary American dramatists and playwrights American television writers American male television writers Living people Cranford High School alumni People from Cranford, New Jersey Place of birth missing (living people) American male dramatists and playwrights Screenwriters from New Jersey Year of birth missing (living people) Television producers from New Jersey