Paul Wolff is an American screenwriter, actor, and producer. He taught

screenwriting Screenwriting or scriptwriting is the art and craft of writing scripts for mass media such as feature films, television productions or video games. It is often a freelance profession. Screenwriters are responsible for researching the story, dev ...

at the

University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts The USC School of Cinematic Arts is an academic unit of the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. With a history that dates to the first years of talkies, the school descends from America's first program to confer a college degree in ...

and retired in 2016 after serving on the faculty for over twenty years. Wolff previously had a career in

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

which spanned nearly three decades.

Career

Writer, producer and actor

After graduating high school, Wolff joined the mailroom at

United Artists United Artists (UA) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded in February 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford an ...

in Manhattan. He was promoted to the publicity department where he became friends with fellow publicist, and future filmmaker

Jonathan Demme Robert Jonathan Demme ( ; February 22, 1944 – April 26, 2017) was an American filmmaker, whose career directing, producing, and screenwriting spanned more than 30 years and 70 feature films, documentaries, and television productions. He was an ...

. The two collaborated on Demme's first film as a director, a short called ''Good Morning, Steve'', which Wolff wrote and starred in. In 1968, Wolff produced a short film adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's "

Annabel Lee "Annabel Lee" is the last complete poem composed by American author Edgar Allan Poe. Like many of Poe's poems, it explores the theme of the death of a beautiful woman.Meyers, Jeffrey. ''Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy''. New York: Cooper Squ ...

", which starred a young

Paul LeMat Paul Le Mat (born September 22, 1945) is an American actor. He first came to prominence with his role in ''American Graffiti'' (1973); his performance was met with critical acclaim and earned him the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year ...

and was acquired by Warner Brothers and theatrically released in 1969. In the 1970s, Wolff was a writer on the TV series ''

Family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

''. He later wrote for such TV shows as ''

Little House on the Prairie The ''Little House on the Prairie'' books comprise a series of American children's novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder (b. Laura Elizabeth Ingalls). The stories are based on her childhood and adulthood in the Midwestern United States, Americ ...

'', ''

Family Ties ''Family Ties'' is an American television sitcom that aired on NBC for seven seasons, premiering on September 22, 1982, and concluding on May 14, 1989. The series, created by Gary David Goldberg, reflected the social shift in the United Stat ...

'', '' 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 NBC from October 1, 1982, ...

'' (starring

Pierce Brosnan Pierce Brendan Brosnan (born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor and film producer. He was the fifth actor to play the fictional secret agent Portrayal of James Bond in film, James Bond in the List of James Bond films, James Bond film series, starri ...

), and ''

Home Improvement The concept of home improvement, home renovation or remodeling is the process of renovating, making improvements or making additions to one's home. Home improvement can consist of projects that upgrade an existing home interior (such as electr ...

''. Wolff also worked as a

television producer A television producer is a person who oversees one or more aspects of a television show, television program. Some producers take more of an executive role, in that they conceive new programs and pitch them to the television networks, but upon acce ...

and

showrunner A showrunner is the top-level executive producer of a television series. The position outranks other creative and management personnel, including episode directors, in contrast to feature films, in which the director has creative control over th ...

, and along with partner Elliot Shoenman, co-created and executive produced the short-lived series ''

Annie McGuire Annie may refer to: People and fictional characters * Annie (given name), a given name and a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Annie (Malayalam actress) (born 1975), Indian actress who works in Malayalam-language films * ...

'' starring

Mary Tyler Moore Mary Tyler Moore (December 29, 1936 – January 25, 2017) was an American actress, producer, and social advocate. She is best known for her roles on '' The Dick Van Dyke Show'' (1961–1966) and ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' (1970–1977), whic ...

. He later served as a producer and director on the early 1990s series '' Life Goes On''.

Other endeavors

In addition to teaching a variety of screenwriting courses at the

, Wolff also served on the film school's foreign delegations to both Jordan and Vietnam, where he led workshops in screenwriting, sponsored by the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

. Wolff was one of the founders of the ''Unica Film Collaborative'', an experimental film group that focuses on the process of

filmmaking Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...

, rather than the product. Unica's first feature film, ''Blue in Green'', was chosen by

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

film critic Kevin Thomas to screen at the LA Cinematheque's Alternative Film Festival. In 2008, Wolff co-starred in the independent feature film ''Father vs. Son'', also starring actor Eric Stonestreet. Outside of his work in the entertainment industry, Wolff was ordained as a

Maggid A maggid (), also spelled as magid, is a traditional Jewish religious itinerant preacher, skilled as a narrator of Torah and religious stories. A chaplain of the more scholarly sort is called a ''Darshan (Judaism), darshan'' (). The title of ''m ...

(a Jewish teacher-storyteller) by Rabbis Jonathan Omer-man and

Zalman Schachter-Shalomi Meshullam Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (August 28, 1924 – July 3, 2014), commonly called "Reb Zalman" (full Hebrew name: ), was an American Rabbi, writer, and activist, and one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement and an innovator in ecu ...

, and was chronicled in

Rodger Kamenetz Rodger Kamenetz (born 1950) is an American poet and author best known for ''The Jew in the Lotus'' (1994), an account of the historic dialogue between rabbis and the XIV Dalai Lama. His poetry explores the Jewish experience and in recent years, ...

best-selling book ''Stalking Elijah'' (HarperOne, 1997). In 1994, he was recommended by Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi to the Los Angeles Jewish Home to help the extreme aged find hope and purpose in the latter stages of life. His "Meaning of Life" group ran for over 20 years. In ''Over the Top Judaism'' (University Press of America, 2003), author Elliot Gertel wrote that Wolff's "The Craftsman" episode of TV's ''

'' was "television's best exploration of Judaism."Over the Top Judaism
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolff, Paul Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Television writers from California American male television writers American male television actors