Terry Winter was a producer on The Sopranos. How did he get the job? Keep reading.
I ended up taking a job at a big corporate law firm and was bored to
tears. I was the world’s worst lawyer, and it was pretty clear to me
that I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. So I did
some soul-searching, and you know, my deep, dark secret, once I was able
to admit it to myself, was that I wanted to be a writer. Once I was
able to say out loud I want to be a TV writer, I want to be a sitcom
writer, which is where I kind of started, the world opened up for me.
So I packed up and I moved to L.A. I’d never been west of Chicago. I
didn’t know a soul, but I just quit my job and I showed up in Los
Angeles and started writing spec scripts.
I got a job as a paralegal just to pay the bills during the day and I started writing at night. I wrote a couple of sitcom specs that people really liked. But you need an agent to get a job and you need a job to
get an agent. It was this catch-22 that I found myself in. I would cold-call agents and try to get them to read my stuff, and weeks would go by and then they’d forget who I was, and I thought, God, I’ve gotta figure a way to break into this.
So I went down to the Writer’s Guild. At the time they offered a
list of agents who would take unsolicited manuscripts from people, and
on the list was a guy I went to law school with -- just sheer
coincidence. So I called him up; he was an attorney in New York.
I said are you an agent now? And he said, No, I’m a real-estate
attorney. I’m bonded as an agent, but I really don’t know anything about
it. And I said, I don’t either, but I know I need an agent, so you’re
it. Congratulations, you’re representing me.
So we made deal where I would create basically a phony agency with
his name. I did this out of the Mail Boxes Etc. on Santa Monica
Boulevard, and I got a voice-mail system and letterhead printed up. I
said I’m gonna submit my work under your name, and if I get anything,
I’ll give you ten percent like a real agent.
I took a day off from work and hit like every sitcom office in L.A., which at the time, there were like 26 sitcoms on the air. And I just walked in wearing a baseball cap and said, Yeah, hi, I’m the messenger
from this agency and here are the scripts you wanted. And I thought, all right, at least my scripts are in the building where people theoretically could hire me.
A couple of weeks went by and I got a call on a Friday from Winifred Hervey Stallworth, who at the time was the showrunner for “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
,” and she was calling for Doug, who was my agent. And she said, Yeah, Doug, it’s Win Hervey from “Fresh Prince.” I read Terry Winter’s scripts and really think they’re great. We’d love to maybe talk to you about having him come in to pitch.
So I called Doug in New York. At this point it was like 4 in the afternoon in L.A. and 7 in New York, and he was already gone for the weekend. So I thought, Oh, God, I’ve gotta wait until Monday now. And then it occurred to me that Doug didn’t really know anything about being an agent, so I thought, you know what, I can just call and say I’m Doug and it’ll be easier to cut out the middleman.
I called her and she said, Oh, great, Doug. Oh, you know, “Fresh Prince” is sort of a teenage-oriented show. Does he have like one more teenage kind of script?
And I said, Yeah, he just finished a “Wonder Years” spec that’s really terrific -- which was a lie. I didn’t have anything else at that point; she had everything I wrote.
I said, Terry’s out of town for the weekend, but I could probably get this to you by Tuesday. And she said, Yeah great, Tuesday’s fine.
I hung up the phone, and from Friday night until Tuesday afternoon, I cranked out a “Wonder Years” script, and then I threw the baseball hat back on, went as a messenger again and showed up at the office, flung it in the door, made sure nobody saw me, because at this point I was like the messenger, the agent, the client …
And they called me back and had me in to pitch some ideas.
That was my first foot in the door.
Shortly thereafter I got accepted into the Warner Bros. sitcom
writers workshop, which is really a godsend. And that led to my first
job on a show called “The Great Defender” on Fox. That show was
co-created by a guy named Frank Renzulli. Frank and I became good
friends.
A couple of years later I got a videocassette in the mail from my agency; it was a pilot for The Sopranos
. I watched this thing and I said, Oh my God, I have to be on this show. I know these guys. I grew up
in Brooklyn sort of around this kind of world a little bit. I called my
agent and said, You’ve gotta get me on this show.
My second call was to Frank, who was familiar with this world as
well and, as it turned out, Frank had seen the pilot and he was in fact
meeting with David Chase later that week. It turns out that Frank was
the last guy David hired on the show, but Frank talked me up quite a bit
to David, and when there was an opening, David brought me on, too.
I got to learn at the feet of David Chase at “The Sopranos” for nine years and watch him run that show, so when I had an opportunity to run
Boardwalk Empire
, I felt like I had learned from one of the best ever.
I love these stories about people who saw a way, and took it. Ballsy. Just wish I was like that. Anyway, read the whole story HERE, on The Wrap.
First posted: 22 October 2011
Terry Winter was a producer on The Sopranos. How did he get the job? Keep reading.
I ended up taking a job at a big corporate law firm and was bored to
tears. I was the world’s worst lawyer, and it was pretty clear to me
that I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. So I did
some soul-searching, and you know, my deep, dark secret, once I was able
to admit it to myself, was that I wanted to be a writer. Once I was
able to say out loud I want to be a TV writer, I want to be a sitcom
writer, which is where I kind of started, the world opened up for me.
So I packed up and I moved to L.A. I’d never been west of Chicago. I
didn’t know a soul, but I just quit my job and I showed up in Los
Angeles and started writing spec scripts.
I got a job as a paralegal just to pay the bills during the day and I started writing at night. I wrote a couple of sitcom specs that people really liked. But you need an agent to get a job and you need a job to
get an agent. It was this catch-22 that I found myself in. I would cold-call agents and try to get them to read my stuff, and weeks would go by and then they’d forget who I was, and I thought, God, I’ve gotta figure a way to break into this.
So I went down to the Writer’s Guild. At the time they offered a
list of agents who would take unsolicited manuscripts from people, and
on the list was a guy I went to law school with -- just sheer
coincidence. So I called him up; he was an attorney in New York.
I said are you an agent now? And he said, No, I’m a real-estate
attorney. I’m bonded as an agent, but I really don’t know anything about
it. And I said, I don’t either, but I know I need an agent, so you’re
it. Congratulations, you’re representing me.
So we made deal where I would create basically a phony agency with
his name. I did this out of the Mail Boxes Etc. on Santa Monica
Boulevard, and I got a voice-mail system and letterhead printed up. I
said I’m gonna submit my work under your name, and if I get anything,
I’ll give you ten percent like a real agent.
I took a day off from work and hit like every sitcom office in L.A., which at the time, there were like 26 sitcoms on the air. And I just walked in wearing a baseball cap and said, Yeah, hi, I’m the messenger
from this agency and here are the scripts you wanted. And I thought, all right, at least my scripts are in the building where people theoretically could hire me.
A couple of weeks went by and I got a call on a Friday from Winifred Hervey Stallworth, who at the time was the showrunner for “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” and she was calling for Doug, who was my agent. And she said, Yeah, Doug, it’s Win Hervey from “Fresh Prince.” I read Terry Winter’s scripts and really think they’re great. We’d love to maybe talk to you about having him come in to pitch.
So I called Doug in New York. At this point it was like 4 in the afternoon in L.A. and 7 in New York, and he was already gone for the weekend. So I thought, Oh, God, I’ve gotta wait until Monday now. And then it occurred to me that Doug didn’t really know anything about being an agent, so I thought, you know what, I can just call and say I’m Doug and it’ll be easier to cut out the middleman.
I called her and she said, Oh, great, Doug. Oh, you know, “Fresh Prince” is sort of a teenage-oriented show. Does he have like one more teenage kind of script?
And I said, Yeah, he just finished a “Wonder Years” spec that’s really terrific -- which was a lie. I didn’t have anything else at that point; she had everything I wrote.
I said, Terry’s out of town for the weekend, but I could probably get this to you by Tuesday. And she said, Yeah great, Tuesday’s fine.
I hung up the phone, and from Friday night until Tuesday afternoon, I cranked out a “Wonder Years” script, and then I threw the baseball hat back on, went as a messenger again and showed up at the office, flung it in the door, made sure nobody saw me, because at this point I was like the messenger, the agent, the client …
And they called me back and had me in to pitch some ideas.
That was my first foot in the door.
Shortly thereafter I got accepted into the Warner Bros. sitcom
writers workshop, which is really a godsend. And that led to my first
job on a show called “The Great Defender” on Fox. That show was
co-created by a guy named Frank Renzulli. Frank and I became good
friends.
A couple of years later I got a videocassette in the mail from my agency; it was a pilot for The Sopranos. I watched this thing and I said, Oh my God, I have to be on this show. I know these guys. I grew up
in Brooklyn sort of around this kind of world a little bit. I called my
agent and said, You’ve gotta get me on this show.
My second call was to Frank, who was familiar with this world as
well and, as it turned out, Frank had seen the pilot and he was in fact
meeting with David Chase later that week. It turns out that Frank was
the last guy David hired on the show, but Frank talked me up quite a bit
to David, and when there was an opening, David brought me on, too.
I got to learn at the feet of David Chase at “The Sopranos” for nine years and watch him run that show, so when I had an opportunity to run
Boardwalk Empire, I felt like I had learned from one of the best ever.
I love these stories about people who saw a way, and took it. Ballsy. Just wish I was like that. Anyway, read the whole story HERE, on The Wrap.
