Lois "Elle" Johnson is an American television writer, producer, and showrunner.
Johnson grew up in Hollis, Queens in New York City. Her father was a parole officer and her uncle was a homicide detective. [1] [2] In 1981, her 16-year-old cousin was killed in a botched robbery at a Burger King in the Bronx. [3]
Johnson graduated from Harvard University in 1986 with an AB in art history. [2]
Given her family's background in law enforcement, Johnson's career as a writer and producer in television has centered around police procedurals and other police crime dramas, including Homicide: Life on the Street , CSI: Miami , Street Time , Law & Order , The Glades , and Bosch . Other shows she has worked on include Rescue 77 , Any Day Now , [2] Ghost Whisperer , [1] and The Fosters . [4]
Johnson, formerly a member of Writers Guild of America West, left and maintained financial core status in 1999. [5]
Johnson was an executive producer and co-showrunner for the 2020 Netflix miniseries Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C. J. Walker . [4] [6] [7]
Johnson is the author of the memoir The Officer's Daughter, published by HarperCollins in 2021. The book focuses on the murder of her cousin and her relationship with her father. [3] [8] [9] [10]
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language book publishing companies; the other four include Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. HarperCollins is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of NewsCorp.
Madam C. J. Walker was an African American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political and social activist. She is recorded as the first female self-made millionaire in America in the Guinness Book of World Records. Multiple sources mention that although other women might have been the first, their wealth is not as well-documented.
Ann Patchett is an American author. She received the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction in the same year, for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Taft (1994), The Magician's Assistant (1997), Run (2007), State of Wonder (2011), Commonwealth (2016), and The Dutch House (2019). The Dutch House was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Shonda Lynn Rhimes is an American television producer and screenwriter, and founder of the production company Shondaland. As of 2023, she is one of the richest women entertainers in America, with a net worth of $250 million.
Karin Slaughter is an American crime writer. She has written 21 novels, which have sold more than 40 million copies and have been published in 120 countries. Her first novel, Blindsighted (2001), was published in 27 languages and made the Crime Writers' Association's Dagger Award shortlist for "Best Thriller Debut" of 2001.
A'Lelia Walker was an American businesswoman and patron of the arts. She was the only surviving child of Madam C. J. Walker, popularly credited as being the first self-made female millionaire in the United States and one of the first African American millionaires.
Pearl "Polly" Adler was an American madam and author, best known for her work A House Is Not a Home, which was posthumously adapted into a film of the same name. In 2021, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Debby Applegate published a comprehensive account of Adler's life and times entitled Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age with Doubleday.
Arthur Carlton Cuse is a screenwriter, showrunner, producer and director best known for the American television series Lost, for which he made the Time list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010. Cuse is known for his groundbreaking cross-genre storytelling, pioneering work in interactive media, collaborative achievements, and mentorship of many screenwriters who went on to become showrunners of television series.
Jenji Leslie Kohan is an American television writer and producer. She is best known as the creator and showrunner of the Showtime comedy-drama series Weeds and the Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black. She has received nine Emmy Award nominations, winning one as supervising producer of the comedy series Tracey Takes On....
Kurt Leon Sutter is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and actor. He worked as a producer, writer, and director on The Shield, and appeared on the show as hitman Margos Dezerian. Sutter is also the creator of Sons of Anarchy and its spinoff Mayans M.C. on FX; he wrote, produced, and directed the series, as well as played incarcerated club member Otto Delaney. Sutter spent time with members of an outlaw motorcycle club in Northern California as research for Sons of Anarchy. Sutter's wife, actress Katey Sagal, played main character Gemma Teller.
Janine Sherman Barrois is an American television writer, producer, and showrunner. She known for her works on ER, Third Watch and Criminal Minds. From 2017 to 2022, she executive produced crime comedy-drama Claws on TNT. She also produced Netflix miniseries Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker, the Oprah Winfrey Network prime time soap opera, The Kings of Napa, and Apple TV+ thriller The Big Cigar. She is two-time NAACP Image Awards winner for writing. She owned production banner, Folding Chair Prods., which she has launched at Warner Bros. Television Group in 2015.
Lily Jane Collins is a British and American actress. Born in Guildford and raised in Los Angeles, Collins began performing on screen at the age of two in the BBC sitcom Growing Pains. In the late 2000s, Collins began acting and modelling more regularly, and gained recognition for her supporting role in the sports drama film The Blind Side (2009). She went on to star in several films, including the horror film Priest (2011), the thriller Abduction (2011), and the fantasy films Mirror Mirror (2012) and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013).
A'Lelia Perry Bundles is an American journalist, news producer and author, known for her 2001 biography of her great-great-grandmother Madam C. J. Walker.
Sera Gamble is an American television writer and producer, best known for her work on the Lifetime/Netflix series You, the Syfy series The Magicians and The CW series Supernatural.
Cylin Busby is an author and screenwriter, known for the best-selling true crime memoir, The Year We Disappeared, written with her father John Busby.
Nahnatchka Khan is an American television writer and producer. She created and executive produced the ABC comedy series Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 (2012–2013) and Fresh Off the Boat (2015–2020), and the NBC comedy series Young Rock (2021–2023). She also directed the 2019 Netflix film Always Be My Maybe.
Attica Locke is an American fiction author and writer/producer for television and film.
Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C. J. Walker is an American drama streaming television limited series, based on the biography On Her Own Ground by A'Lelia Bundles, that premiered on March 20, 2020, on Netflix. It received generally positive reviews with praise for Octavia Spencer's performance; however it received criticism for various historical inaccuracies and artistic licence. For her performance, Spencer received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.
Morgan Jerkins is an American writer and editor. Her debut book, This Will Be My Undoing (2018), a collection of nonfiction essays, was a New York Times bestseller. Her second book, Wandering in Strange Lands, was released in August 2020. She is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University.
Blockbuster is an American workplace comedy television series created by Vanessa Ramos, who also serves as showrunner and is executive producer. Based upon the Blockbuster brand, the series stars Randall Park as Timmy, the manager in a fictionalized version of the last Blockbuster Video store, set in Grandville, Michigan. The series premiered on Netflix on November 3, 2022. In December 2022, the series was canceled after one season.