Marc Cherry born 23 March 1962Marc Cherry is an American writer and producer. He is best known for being the creator of the show Desperate Housewives.
After graduating from high School, Cherry attended California State University, to study theatre and initially considered a career in performance. He decided to move to Hollywood and pursue writing work. His move came at a bad time; the 1988 writer's strike hit as soon as Cherry arrived. Cherry broke into the industry by working as Designing Women star Dixie Carter's personal assistant.
In 1990, he became a writer and producer for the long-running hit sitcom The Golden Girls. Cherry wrote for the show, and its short lived spinoff The Golden Palace.
When those shows concluded, Cherry co-created The Five Mrs Buchanans. The concept of the show centred around a matriarch and the wives of her four sons. The show had a brief run on CBS during the 1994-1995 season.
Cherry also co-created The Crew (1995). On his own, he later created Some of My Best Friends a 2001 sitcom that was based in part on the film Kiss Me, Guido.
In 2002, a conversation with his mother inspired him to develop a show about the fractured lives of four upper middle class suburban women. After HBO, FOX, CBS, NBC, Showtime, and Lifetime Television all passed on the show, Cherry got his big break when his agent was arrested and went to jail for embezzlement. His new agents brought the show to ABC, which decided to pick it up. The series, Desperate Housewives, was an immediate ratings smash and generated enormous national (and subsequently, international) debate. Cherry received several lucrative offers from various parties, but chose to sign a long-term deal with Touchstone, since their network had shown faith in Desperate Housewives when no one else would.
The show was a phenomenon for much of its first season, but was criticised by TV critics who said the second season was not as creative or as good as the first. Viewers seemed to agree, since the ratings dropped as the season progressed. Cherry, the Head Writer, who had been working part-time on the show in season two, took a larger role in developing and producing season three. The show is a multiple Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award winner. Now having completed seven seasons Desperate Housewives continues to be popular (if less phenomenal) and Cherry has taken again taken more of a back seat while promising that the show has enough life in it for a few more seasons.
Cherry has been described as a 'somewhat conservative gay Republican and was the recipient of the Log Cabin Republicans American Visibility Award in 2006.