Paul Wolff is an American screenwriter, actor, and producer. He taught screenwriting at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and retired in 2016 after serving on the faculty for over twenty years. Wolff previously had a career in television which spanned nearly three decades.
After graduating high school, Wolff joined the mailroom at United Artists in Manhattan. He was promoted to the publicity department where he became friends with fellow publicist, and future filmmaker Jonathan Demme. The two collaborated on Demme’s first film as a director, a short called Good Morning, Steve, which Wolff wrote and starred in. [1] [2]
In 1968, Wolff produced a short film adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s "Annabel Lee", which starred a young Paul LeMat and was acquired by Warner Brothers and theatrically released in 1969. [3] [4]
In the 1970s, Wolff was a writer on the TV series Family . He later wrote for such TV shows as Little House on the Prairie , Family Ties , Fame , Remington Steele (starring Pierce Brosnan), and Home Improvement . Wolff also worked as a television producer and showrunner, and along with partner Elliot Shoenman, co-created and executive produced the short-lived series Annie McGuire starring Mary Tyler Moore. He later served as a producer and director on the early 1990s series Life Goes On . [5] [6]
In addition to teaching a variety of screenwriting courses at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, 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. [7]
Wolff was one of the founders of the Unica Film Collaborative, an experimental film group that focuses on the process of filmmaking, rather than the product. Unica's first feature film, Blue in Green, was chosen by Los Angeles Times film critic Kevin Thomas to screen at the LA Cinematheque's Alternative Film Festival. [8]
In 2008, Wolff co-starred in the independent feature film Father vs. Son, also starring actor Eric Stonestreet. [9]
Outside of his work in the entertainment industry, Wolff was ordained as a Maggid (a Jewish teacher-storyteller) by Rabbis Jonathan Omer-man and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and was chronicled in Rodger Kamenetz best-selling book Stalking Elijah (HarperOne, 1997). [10] 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. [11]
In Over the Top Judaism (University Press of America, 2003), author Elliot Gertel wrote that Wolff's "The Craftsman" episode of TV's Little House on the Prairie was "television's best exploration of Judaism." [12]
Robert Jonathan Demme 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 Academy Award and a Directors Guild of America Award winner, and received nominations for a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and three Independent Spirit Awards.
Meshullam Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, commonly called "Reb Zalman", was one of the founders of the Jewish Renewal movement and an innovator in ecumenical dialogue.
Mark Jonathan Harris is an American documentary filmmaker, writer, and educator known for his award-winning work in the documentary genre. Over the course of his career, Harris has earned three Academy Awards and numerous accolades for his contributions to filmmaking and education. He served as a Distinguished Professor and Head of Advanced Documentary Production at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he taught from 1983 until his retirement in 2023. Harris is also an accomplished author, having written five children's novels and a collection of short stories.
Paul Le Mat 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 - Actor.
Jewish Renewal is a Jewish religious movement originating in the 20th century that endeavors to reinvigorate modern Judaism with Kabbalistic, Hasidic, and musical practices. Specifically, it seeks to reintroduce the "ancient Judaic traditions of mysticism and meditation, gender equality and ecstatic prayer" to synagogue services. It is distinct from the baal teshuva movement of return to Orthodox Judaism.
The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) houses eight academic divisions: Film & Television Production; Cinema & Media Studies; John C. Hench Division of Animation + Digital Arts; John Wells Division of Writing for Screen & Television; Interactive Media & Games; Media Arts + Practice; Peter Stark Producing Program and the Expanded Animation Research + Practice Program.
Irvin Kershner was an American director for film and television.
Tobias Jonathan Ansell Wolff is an American short story writer, memoirist, novelist, and teacher of creative writing. He is known for his memoirs, particularly This Boy's Life (1989) and In Pharaoh's Army (1994). He has written four short story collections and two novels including The Barracks Thief (1984), which won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Wolff received a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in September 2015.
David Bezmozgis is a Latvian-born Canadian writer and filmmaker, currently the head of Humber College's School for Writers.
Robert McKee is an author, lecturer and story consultant who is known for his "Story Seminar", which he developed when he was a professor at the University of Southern California. McKee also has the blog and online writers' resource "Storylogue". Robert McKee's "Story Seminars" have been held around the world. The three-day seminar teaches writers the principles of storytelling. McKee's one-day "Genre Seminars" teach writers the conventions of different styles of storytelling.
Rodger Kamenetz 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, dream consciousness. Since 2003 he's been instrumental in developing Natural Dreamwork, a practice that focuses on the sacred encounters in dreams.
The Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts (RSICA) is MFA program in Cinematic Arts and is based in Aqaba, Jordan. RSICA is a joint effort of Royal Film Commission – Jordan and the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
Dan Gordon is an Israeli-American screenwriter, television writer, television producer, television director, film producer, novelist, playwright, film director, and reserve duty captain in the Israel Defense Forces.
William Baer is an American writer, translator, editor, and academic. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright (Portugal), and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Jack Epps Jr. is an American screenwriter, author, and educator, known chiefly for such popular 1980s films as Top Gun, Legal Eagles, and The Secret of My Success, which he wrote with longtime partner Jim Cash. Epps Jr. graduated from the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University, and he has since gone on to teach at the University of Southern California.
Theodore Braun is an American filmmaker best known for his feature documentaries Darfur Now (2007), Betting on Zero (2017), and ¡Viva Maestro! (2022). He works in non-fiction across documentary and scripted forms with a focus on global conflict. He has won the International Documentary Association's Emerging Filmmaker Award, an NAACP Image Award for Best Feature Documentary and been nominated twice for the WGA Award for Best Feature Documentary Screenplay.
Mary Beth Fielder is an American writer, director and producer of television and feature films. She served on the faculty of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts from 1994 to 2009.
Rami M. Shapiro, commonly called "Rabbi Rami", is an American Reform rabbi, author, teacher, and speaker on the subjects liberal Judaism and contemporary spirituality. His Judaism is grounded in the perennial philosophy.
Aaron Covington is an American screenwriter and sound designer from Northwest Indiana.
Yisroel Jacobson (1895-1975) was a Chabad Hasidic rabbi and the representative of the sixth Chabad rebbe, Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, to the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. He was one of the first Lubavitcher activists to arrive in to the United States. He was born in Russia and migrated to the United States in 1925.