Matthew Weiner
Matthew Hoffman Weiner (/ˈwaɪnər/;[1] born June 29, 1965)[2] is an American television writer, producer, and director best known as the creator and showrunner of the television series Mad Men, and as a writer and executive producer on The Sopranos.
This article is about the American writer, producer, director, actor, and author. For the American singer, musician, and record producer born with the same name, see Matthew Wilder.
Matthew Weiner
Screenwriter, television producer, director
1996–present
4
Weiner began his television career as a writer on Becker and worked on several other sitcoms before writing the pilot episode of Mad Men as a spec script and joining the writing staff of The Sopranos in 2004. After achieving success on both The Sopranos and Mad Men, he wrote, directed, and produced the comedy-drama film Are You Here in 2013, published his first novel Heather, the Totality in 2017, and created the anthology drama series The Romanoffs in 2018.
Weiner has won nine Primetime Emmy Awards, two for The Sopranos and seven for Mad Men, as well as three Golden Globe Awards for Mad Men.[3][4][5][6][7][8] Mad Men won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for four consecutive years (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011); The Sopranos (with Weiner as an executive producer) won the same award twice, in 2004 and 2007.[9][10] In 2011, Weiner was included in Time's annual Time 100 as one of the "Most Influential People in the World".[11] In November 2011, The Atlantic named him one of 21 "Brave Thinkers".[12]
Early life and education[edit]
Weiner was born in 1965 in Baltimore to a Jewish family. He attended The Park School of Baltimore and grew up in Los Angeles where he attended Harvard School for Boys. His father was a medical researcher and chair of the neurology department at University of Southern California. His mother graduated from law school but never practiced.[1] He enrolled in the College of Letters at Wesleyan University, studying literature, philosophy, and history and earned an MFA from the University of Southern California School of Cinema and Television.[13][14]
Personal life[edit]
Weiner married architect Linda Brettler in 1991. He filed for divorce in July 2019. One of their four sons, Marten Holden Weiner, played the recurring role of Glen Bishop on Mad Men.[1]
In August 2015, he signed, along with 98 other members of the Los Angeles Jewish community, an open letter supporting the proposed nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers led by the United States "as being in the best interest of the United States and Israel."[30]
On November 9, 2017, former Mad Men writer Kater Gordon accused Weiner of making a comment at the office one night to the effect that she owed it to him "to see her naked." Weiner denies any memory of making the alleged comment.[31][32] Furthermore, Weiner told Vanity Fair, "I can't see a scenario where I would say that. What I can see is, it was 10 years ago and I don't remember saying it. When someone says you said something, like the experience we just had right now – I don't remember saying that."[33]