Glenn Gordon Caron (born April 3, 1954), sometimes credited as Glenn Caron, is an American writer, director, and producer, best known for the television series Moonlighting in the 1980s and Medium in the 2000s. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
Caron was born to a Jewish family[1] in Oceanside, New York. After graduating from the State University of New York at Geneseo in 1975, Caron studied with Del Close and The Second City in Chicago before working at an advertising agency.[2]
While at the ad agency he was invited by NBC to write a pilot for the network. The pilot did not receive a series order, but Caron's work impressed writer-producer James L. Brooks, who invited him to join the writing staff of Taxi, although he only worked on one episode.
Caron subsequently coproduced the first 12 episodes of Remington Steele (NBC, 1982-'87) before leaving to form his own company, Picturemaker Productions. Caron created Moonlighting (ABC, 1985-'89), a worldwide hit that revitalized the career of Cybill Shepherd and launched the career of Bruce Willis. Between its third and fourth seasons, Caron directed his first feature film, Clean and Sober (1988), starring Michael Keaton. He was fired by ABC from Moonlighting before the start of its fifth (and final) season, reportedly because Shepherd demanded it.[3] Caron then directed three more feature films — Wilder Napalm (1993), starring Dennis Quaid and Debra Winger, and written by Vince Gilligan, who later created the AMC series Breaking Bad; the Warren Beatty-Annette Bening vehicle Love Affair (1994), a remake of the 1939 film of the same name; and Picture Perfect (1997), starring Jennifer Aniston — before returning to television in 1999 as the creator of the short-lived series Now and Again (CBS, 1999-2000).[4]
In 2001 Fox ordered 13 episodes of the Caron-created romantic comedy Fling. Seven episodes were shot, but the network became unhappy with the direction of the series during production and canceled it before any of those episodes could be broadcast.[5] Four years later Caron created Medium for NBC. He also served as executive producer of the show, wrote several episodes and directed the series's pilot episode. It ran for seven seasons, with the last two airing on CBS.[6]
In 2008 Caron wrote a pilot for CBS titled The Meant to Be
In 2013 Caron wrote a pilot for a proposed Fox series titled The Middle Man. Set in the 1960s, a Boston FBI agent and his Irish-American informant take on the Italian-American mafia. Ben Affleck was attached to direct the pilot episode,[8] but it was never filmed. The following year Fox ordered a pilot for The Cure, a medical drama to be cowritten and coproduced by Caron and New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell,[9] but it too was never filmed. Caron was also attached to write a pilot for ITV Studios in 2016 based on Alan Glynn's novel Paradime.[10]
Caron wrote and produced episodes of the first and second seasons of the FX series Tyrant, and in the spring of 2017 he joined CBS's Bull as a consulting producer before becoming the series's showrunner at the beginning of season two.[11] In May 2021, it was announced that Caron would be departing Bull, as well as ending his deal with CBS Studios.[12] [13] [14]
Caron received the 2007 Outstanding Television Writer Award at the Austin Film Festival.[15] He also won a Writers Guild of America award for his 1985 pilot script for Moonlighting and was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards for Moonlighting between 1986 and 1987.[16]
Caron has been married to his second wife, Tina DiJoseph, since 2006; they have one child. Caron has three children from his first marriage. He is the founder-owner of Picturemaker Productions.[17]
On December 19, 2018, The Boston Globe published an op-ed by actress Eliza Dushku in which she claimed she was fired by Caron from the CBS series Bull in 2017 after she confronted its star, Michael Weatherly, about sexually charged remarks he had made to her while filming the final three episodes of the show's first season.[18] Caron had been hired as a consulting producer for those three episodes, prior to becoming Bulls showrunner and an executive producer for season two. Dushku had been expected to join the series full-time in season two. CBS paid her $9.5 million to settle her claims of wrongful dismissal and sexual harassment.[19] Dushku signed a nondisclosure agreement as part of her settlement, but after news of the settlement leaked and Weatherly and Caron gave statements to The New York Times — "The idea that our not exercising her option to join the series was in any way punitive just couldn't be further from the truth," said Caron — Dushku said she felt compelled to respond, writing, "The narrative propagated by CBS, actor Michael Weatherly, and writer-producer Glenn Gordon Caron is deceptive and in no way fits with how they treated me on the set of the television show Bull and retaliated against me for simply asking to do my job without relentless sexual harassment."[20] Prior to his exit from Bull in 2021, CBS launched an investigation regarding the departures of multiple writers from the show and whether or not Caron allegedly "fostered a disrespectful work environment during his four-year tenure."[21]
| Year | Title | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | Taxi (ABC) | Episode: "The Great Race" | |
| 1980 | Good Time Harry (NBC) | Episode: "Harry Kisses Death on the Mouth" (cowritten by Steve Gordon) | |
| 1980–1981 | Breaking Away (ABC) | Episodes (3): — "Knowing Her" (1980) (story by Joel Clark) — "Grand Illusion" (1980) (story by John Steven Owen) — "La Strada" (1981) (story by Caron and Steve Tesich) | |
| 1982 | Fame (NBC) | Episode: "Alone in a Crowd" | |
| 1982–1983 | Remington Steele (NBC) | Episodes (4): — "Signed, Steeled and Delivered" (1982) — "Etched in Steele" (1982) — "Hearts of Steele" (1983) (story by Charles Rosin) — "To Stop a Steele" (1983) | |
| 1984 | Concrete Beat (ABC) | two-hour pilot episode not picked up as a series; aired as a TV movie | |
| 1985–1988 | Moonlighting (ABC) (created by Caron; 66 episodes) | Episodes (7): – two-hour pilot episode (1985) – "Brother, Can You Spare a Blonde?" (1985) – "Twas the Episode Before Christmas" (1985) – "The Bride of Tupperman" (1986) – "The Straight Poop" (1987) – "I Am Curious ... Maddie" (1987) (cowritten by Jeff Reno; story by Roger Director, Charles H. Eglee, Karen Hall, and Ron Osborn) – "A Trip to the Moon" (1987) – "A Womb with a View" (1988) (cowritten by Charles H. Eglee) Writers Guild of America Award for Episodic Comedy (1986) Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series (1986, 1987) | |
| 1986 | Long Time Gone (ABC) | two-hour pilot episode not picked up as a series; aired as a TV movie | |
| 1999–2000 | Now and Again (CBS) (created by Caron; 22 episodes) | Episodes (3): — "Origins" (1999) — "On the Town" (1999) — "Over Easy" (1999) | |
| 2001 | Fling (Fox) (created by Caron) | Seven episodes were shot, but the series was canceled before it ever aired. | |
| 2008 | The Meant to Be's (CBS) | pilot episode not picked up as a series; unaired | |
| 2005–2011 | Medium (NBC, 2005-'09; CBS, '09-'11) (created by Caron; 130 episodes) | Episodes (10): — pilot episode (2005) — "Suspicions and Certainties" (2005) — "A Couple of Choices" (2005) (cowritten by Michael Angeli) — "When Push Comes to Shove: Part 2" (2005) — "Knowing Her" (2006) — "Four Dreams: Part 1" (2006) (cowritten by Javier Grillo-Marxuach) — "Four Dreams: Part 2" (cowritten by Javier Grillo-Marxuach) — "And Then" (2008) — "It's a Wonderful Death" (2010) (cowritten by Robert Doherty and Craig Sweeny; story by Shaun Kasser, Samir Mehta, and Sweeny) — "Me Without You" (2011) (cowritten by Robert Doherty and Craig Sweeny) | |
| 2014–2015 | Tyrant (FX) | Episodes (4): — "My Brother's Keeper (2014) — "What the World Needs Now " (2014) (story by Arika Lisanne Mittman) — "Enter the Fates" (2015) — "Inside Men and Outside Women" (2015) | |
| 2017–2021 | Bull (CBS) | Episodes (11): — "How to Dodge a Bullet" (2017) (cowritten by John A. Norris; story by Norris) — "Dirty Little Secrets" (2017) (cowritten by David Hoselton; story by Hoselton) — "Benevolent Deception" (2017) (cowritten by Mark Goffman; story by Goffman) — "School for Scandal" (2017) — "Reckless" (2018) (cowritten by Sarah Kucserka and Veronica West) — "Death Sentence" (2018) (cowritten by Sarah Kucserka and Veronica West) — "The Ground Beneath Their Feet" (2018) — "Pillar of Salt" (2019) (cowritten by Nichole Millard and Kathryn Price) — "Labor Days" (2019) — "My Corona" (2020) — "The Ex Factor" (2020) (cowritten by Marissa Matteo) |
| Year | Title | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980–1981 | Breaking Away | Supervising Producer (7 episodes) | |
| 1982–1983 | Remington Steele | Supervising Producer (12 episodes) | |
| 1984 | Concrete Beat | Executive Producer (two-hour pilot episode not picked up as a series; aired as a TV movie) | |
| 1985–1988 | Moonlighting | Executive Producer (53 episodes) Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series (1986, 1987) | |
| 1986 | Long Time Gone | Executive Producer (two-hour pilot episode not picked up as a series; aired as a TV movie) | |
| 1999–2000 | Now and Again | Executive Producer (22 episodes) | |
| 2001 | Fling | Executive Producer (7 episodes) | |
| 2005–2011 | Medium | Executive Producer (130 episodes) | |
| 2008 | The Meant to Be's | Executive Producer (pilot episode not picked up as a series; unaired) | |
| 2014–2015 | Tyrant | Executive Producer (21 episodes) | |
| 2017–2021 | Bull | Consulting Producer (3 episodes, May 2017) Executive Producer (80 episodes) |
| Year | Title | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Now and Again | Episode: "Origins" | |
| 2001 | Fling | unknown episodes | |
| 2005 | Medium | pilot episode | |
| 2018–2020 | Bull | Episodes: "Death Sentence," "Pillar of Salt," "Safe and Sound," "My Corona" |
| Year | Title | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | The Making of Me | short film created for Disney World's Epcot Center | |
| 1997 | Picture Perfect | cowritten by Paul Slansky and Arleen Sorkin; story by May Quigley, Slansky, and Sorkin |
| Year | Title | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Clean and Sober | ||
| 1989 | The Making of Me | short film created for Disney World's Epcot Center | |
| 1993 | Wilder Napalm | ||
| 1994 | Love Affair | ||
| 1997 | Picture Perfect |