Dick Wolf

Wolf was born in Manhattan to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother of Irish descent. His father, George Wolf, was a writer, director, and producer. As a boy, he was an altar server at the local Catholic parish.

Wolf attended Saint David's School, The Gunnery, and Phillips Academy, Andover. He subsequently attended the University of Pennsylvania (class of 1969), where he was a member of the Zeta Psi fraternity.

Advertising

Wolf worked as an advertising copywriter at Benton & Bowles creating commercials for Crest toothpaste, including the slogan "You can't beat Crest for fighting cavities." He is also credited with the campaign "I'm Cheryl, fly me" for National Airlines. Despite his success in copywriting, he was writing screenplays in the hopes of a film career. It was at this time that he briefly collaborated on a screenplay with Oliver Stone, who was a struggling screenwriter at the time.

Initial screenwriting success

He moved to Los Angeles after a few years and had three screenplays produced; one of these films, Masquerade (1988), featuring Rob Lowe and Meg Tilly, gained notable acclaim. He started his television career as a staff writer on Hill Street Blues and was nominated for his first Emmy Award for the episode "What Are Friends For?", on which he was the only writer. While working on Hill Street Blues, Wolf became close friends with Tom Fontana, then writing for the series St. Elsewhere, produced in the same building, at the same time. Wolf moved from Hill Street Blues to Miami Vice, where he was a writer and co-producer for the third and fourth seasons.

Law & Order franchise

Wolf's original series Law & Order ran from 1990 to 2010, and was revived in 2022. It has surpassed Gunsmoke as longest-running dramatic show in American television history, making it one of television's most successful franchises. It has been nominated for the most consecutive Emmy Awards of any primetime drama series. Wolf serves as creator and executive producer of the current Law & Order drama series from Wolf Entertainment and NBCUniversal Television – Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (which, as of September 5, 2024, is the longest-running scripted primetime drama, having aired 551 episodes, breaking the original Law & Order count of 456 (now 501 through the twenty-third season), and beating both the original Law & Order and Gunsmoke in number of seasons).

Wolf also was creator and executive producer for five spinoff shows in the franchise – Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, Law & Order: LA, Law & Order: Organized Crime, and Conviction. Many of Wolf's series have intersected with the Law & Order franchise in some fashion, and the Law & Order series have been adapted into several foreign versions. He was also the creator and executive producer of NBC's courtroom reality series Crime & Punishment, which chronicled real-life cases prosecuted by the San Diego District Attorney's office.

It was reported that Wolf contributed to Fred Thompson's campaign for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. The two had worked together since 2002, when Thompson joined the cast of Law & Order playing a district attorney.