Tom Fontana

     Email        Scripts


       Archive    2013-2010

      Archive     2010-2001
                 
 
PLEASE NOTE:
 
Tom Fontana cannot accept story ideas, headshots or resumes unless they come from a legitimate agent.  
Please do not send these materials through this web site.  
Thank you


08 Mar 24   


Homicide: Life On The Set

delves into the making of the

multi-award-winning television show

“Homicide: Life On The Street”.

This podcast features exclusive interviews with the cast and crew,
looking at what made this innovative show an enduring classic.

Visit the website to listen



08 Feb 24



Emmy Winner Tom Fontana Returns to Buffalo State: Unveiling ‘The Wrong Road’ with Star-Studded Cast

Read the article here




21 Jan 24


Clive Owen on playing Sam Spade in the AMC series

'Monsieur Spade'






11 Jan 24



What Does a Hard-Boiled Detective Do in Retirement?
In “Monsieur Spade,” a new AMC show, Clive Owen plays the inscrutable Sam Spade, attempting to put his past behind him in the South of France.



read the Times article here




16 Dec 23
   

Andre Braugher played the best

Catholic character on TV



Pembleton was brilliantly written (including by Fontana, another product of Jesuit education, whose complicated relationship with faith informed the character), but it was Braugher who brought Frank’s faith struggle to life with power and honesty.

Read the article Here


28 Nov 23


Peter Biskind’s book on how peak TV came to be,
and what happened when Netflix entered the game
 

Prison drama Oz gets a close-up, and producer Tom Fontana makes the case that that series, more than The Sopranos, ushered in TV’s golden era. “The kind of risks that are being taken now stem directly from the risks we took with Oz,” he said. “It reduced the fear factor that afflicted executives.”
read the story here


28 Sep 23




Buffalo’s one-and-only Tom Fontana (Emmy Award winning writer/producer, and Buffalo State alumnus) will be participating in a community talk at Buff State on Thursday, 9/28. Fontana will be joined by TV network casting executive, Rosalie Joseph. The community talk will be moderated by Buffalo State associate professor of Television and Film Arts, Jeffrey Hirschberg


9 Sept 23
AMC releases teaser for
Monsieur Spade starring Clive Owen




PI Sam Spade (Clive Owen) finds his quiet life in retirement interrupted in Monsieur Spade, AMC’s upcoming six-episode crime drama series from Owen, The Queen’s Gambit creator Scott Frank and City on a Hill showrunner Tom Fontana.


7 Sept 23



...Tom Fontana comes home

Buffalo writer Tom Fontana is coming to Western New York on Sept. 28 and Sept. 29 to talk at his high school alma mater, Canisius, and his college alma mater, SUNY Buffalo State. He is doing a fundraising luncheon at Canisius and a day of classes at Buffalo State.

During the strike, Fontana can still write but there are conditions.
“I can write a play, I can write a short story and I can write a TV script, but it cannot be under contract. In other words, if I signed a contract with Showtime to write a pilot and then we went on strike, I can't write that particular pilot.”

He is writing a play.

1 Sept 23



Tom Fontana is furious.

And thinks you should be, too.



The veteran TV writer, on his fourth writers strike in 40 years, is fighting to save the profession that gave him a legacy





Tom and Irene Burns on the picket line

25 May 23

AMC Networks Acquires Rights To ‘Monsieur Spade’
Drama Starring Clive Owen From Scott Frank & Tom Fontana

Co-written by Fontana & Frank, and to be directed by Frank, Monsieur Spade centers around writer Dashiell Hammett’s great detective Sam Spade (Owen). Monsieur Spade finds Spade (Owen) in the South of France in 1963 at the end of the Algerian War. Living out his golden years in the small town of Bozouls, Spade will soon find his tranquility interrupted.

12 May 23

When ‘Homicide’ Hit Its Stride


"The show was prickly, funny, morally forceful, endlessly discursive and filled with a murderers’ row of actors, including the future stars Andre Braugher (who won an Emmy for his performance as Frank Pembleton), Melissa Leo and Giancarlo Esposito, along with veterans like Ned Beatty, Yaphet Kotto and Richard Belzer, known primarily then as a stand-up comedian."

Read the article here



20 April 23


Buffalo’s Tom Fontana offers insight on Hollywood strikes



..."Getting more money for fewer shows is an economic issue," Fontana said. "AI is truly an existential issue. The minute they can say, 'we'll just have AI write the next Marvel movie,' that's a very short way to, 'why not have AI write the spinoff of 'Yellowstone' once a pattern is set on a television series or a movie?' "  read the article HERE



27 Feb 23
"I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Richard Belzer. He's a true artist, and I'm lucky to call him a friend." Tom Fontana

Richard Belzer   August 4, 1944 – February 19, 2023
20 Feb 23


Richard Belzer Had a Ball With the Relationship Between Comic and Crowd
Unlike his TV characters, his live shows were marked by spontaneity and physicality. He could even keep up with Robin Williams line by line.

12 Aug 22



One Series Showed David Simon That TV
Was Ready For The Wire



"Nothing's in a vacuum. I would credit 'Oz' for showing me that there was this network out there that would tell a dark story and tell an adult story. 'Homicide' [Simon's first book] had been made into a TV show. But with 'The Corner' [Burns and Simon's nonfiction book centered on a West Baltimore drug market], I was like: 'The rights are worth nothing. Nobody's going to put that on American television.' And then I saw 'Oz,'.

read the article by Anya Stanley HERE



30 July 22



Tom Fontana on 'City on a Hill,' Emmys
and entering a Buffalo Hall of Fame




In a wide-ranging interview, Fontana addressed the recent Emmy nominations, the perils of filming during Covid, his next project, his entry into the Buffalo Broadcasters Hall of Fame and this season of “City on a Hill.”
read the article here



19 July 22

Oz Premiered 25 Years Ago, Birthing Prestige TV With It



Before The Sopranos, HBO gave us a prison drama
that set the stage for the next quarter-century of TV.

read the article on


7 June 22



...one of 12 members of Buffalo Broadcasters Assoc.
2022 Hall of Fame class.



Fontana is a SUNY Buffalo State graduate best known for his 40-year Emmy and Peabody Award career as the writer and producer of NBC’s medical series “St. Elsewhere,” the NBC police series “Homicide: Life on the Street" and HBO’s prison series “Oz” and currently is producing Showtime’s “City on a Hill” set in Boston starring Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge.


19 May 22



The Night The Crossover Event Was Born
...this was a revolutionary concept when it was first proposed almost three decades ago and initially was met with resistance. Involved in its inception were two top TV showrunners, Law & Order creator and executive producer Dick Wolf and Oz creator and executive producer Tom Fontana.

The two had been good friends since Fontana was on St. Elsewhere and Wolf was on Hill Street Blues in the early ’80s. “We kept in touch as our career wended its way through various highways,” Wolf says. “Tom moved back to New York, I stayed in LA.”

“Homicide was one of my favorite shows, he said Law & Order was one of his,” Wolf says. “We were talking, and we thought it would be interesting and fun to do a story that crossed over both shows. He didn’t think anyone had done that and neither did I.”




1 April 22
Showitme releases trailer for Season 3

7 February 22




Entertainment Master Class Launches Showrunner Society Mentoring and Training Platform

Entertainment Master Class (EMC) has launched the Showrunner Society, a hybrid online/in-person community for showrunners and media executives.  Described as “a new way for experienced writers and writing producers to learn the craft of Showrunning".

"With the amazing amount of television that’s being created these days, having a place where showrunners from everywhere can meet to share ideas and experiences is essential. We also need a venue to nurture the next generation of showrunning talent.” Tom Fontana




12 November 21
'City On A Hill': Corbin Bernsen, Joanne Kelly, Ernie Hudson Join Showtime Drama Series As Recurring
 
click here to read the article


16 Jume 21


ATX ‘OZ’ Retrospective
Creator & Stars Reminisce About HBO Series
That Changed Television And Their Lives 



Lee Tergesen, who played Tobias Beecher, noted “the balls” Fontana had to write a show like Oz, at a time when there was nothing else like it on TV. “Nobody knew how people were going to take it,” he recalled. “We were all out there going, ‘Lets see what happens.'”

10 June 21
Must-See Programming From the
ATX Television Festival



ATX Television Festival Season 10 virtual edition, June 11-20.
Tickets and info at atxfestival.com.


2 June 21




“City on a Hill,” Showtime’s critically acclaimed Boston crime drama starring Emmy nominee Kevin Bacon and Screen Actors Guild Award winner Aldis Hodge, has been renewed for a third season. Emmy-winning executive producer and showrunner Tom Fontana, creator of HBO’s “Oz” and Canal Plus’ “Borgia,” is set to return for Season 3.

12 May 21


Norman Lloyd Remembered by
 ‘St. Elsewhere’ Showrunner Tom Fontana


Norman Lloyd, November 8, 1914 - May 11, 2021
“He was completely open to any new adventure. Here’s a guy who had worked with Hitchcock and Welles and yet here he was with us doing this crazy show and breaking all the rules,” Fontana recalled. “He totally embraced it. He was the biggest cheerleader for the writers. He was totally game for the serious stuff and the crazy funny stuff.”


26 March 21


Road to season two of 'City on a Hill'
took detour navigated by Tom Fontana
"We finished all the scripts, then all the writers went on their way, and then after George Floyd was murdered, we brought all the writers back just because the season is specifically about elements of racism."

Read the article by Alan Pergament in The Buffalo News


27 March 21

Craig muMs Grant,
Actor and Slam Poet, Dies at 52
 

 
Craig muMs Grant’s biggest success as an actor was the role of Poet on the HBO prison drama “Oz,” but fans of that series were accustomed to seeing him credited simply as muMs. It was a name he adopted as a young man when he was exploring rap and slam poetry, influences that he said changed his life.
read the article in The New York Times
15 March 21

‘Monsieur Spade’
Drama From Scott Frank & Tom Fontana
Heats Up TV Marketplace
Monsieur Spade centers around writer Dashiell Hammett’s great detective, Sam Spade, played by Owen, who has been quietly living out his golden years in the small town of Bozuls in the South of France.
23 February 21




‘City On A Hill’: Star Aldis Hodge, EP Tom Fontana Talk Racism & Police Corruption In Season 2


Showtime's Boston-based crime drama City On A Hill may take place in the 1990s, but today's conversations about racism and police corruption will find relevance in the series' upcoming second season.
31 January 21

Granville Adams' Cancer Fund
As many of you know, our friend and brother Granville Adams has been diagnosed with cancer.  We want to gather together and show Granville our love and support in his fight against this vicious disease.

Please share this campaign with friends and fans of Granville and help spread the word.

Thanks so much,
 
Tom Fontana and Dean Winters

19 January 21
 

‘City on a Hill’:
No Rest for the Wicked in Boston Crime Drama


Kevin Bacon, Aldis Hodge, and Jonathan Tucker star in Showtime’s gritty crime drama ‘City on a Hill’. Set in Boston in 1992, the city’s crime and corruption have reached a boiling point. Even among the cops and robbers, it’s difficult to tell who are the real “bad guys.”
Read the article here


15 December 20

An anthology of Buffalo and Buffalo-based writers on their
pandemic experiences



“Among the diverse group of poets and prose writers are Carl Dennis, Gary Earl Ross, and Tom Fontana—who contributed an original short story featuring four families in an apartment building on Buffalo’s West Side, a slice of their lives in early days of the pandemic.
Read the story here


15 December 20
City on a Hill Season 2: Release date, plot, cast and everything we know so far!
“With the inspired pairing of Kevin Bacon and Aldis Hodge and the inspired writing of Tom Fontana and Chuck MacLean, we believe there is a rich future for this compelling series.” Gary Levine

Read the article here


15 July 20

'90s drama 'Homicide' told
painful truths about policing
Based on a nonfiction book by ex-Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon (who went on to create “The Wire”), developed by Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson and show-runner Tom Fontana, “Homicide” turned the trope-heavy police procedural into a haunting interrogation of the wages of grief.

read the article with video clips Here




15 April 20






His stage debut was in college as an actor in George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, directed by his frequent mentor, Warren Enters. While working at the Williamstown Theater Festival in the early 1980s, he was offered the opportunity to write for television – the offer coming from Bruce Paltrow who was launching St. Elsewhere on NBC.
Read the article HERE.





Mark Ruffalo Recalls His TV Cop Show Days on ‘The Beat’
“Tom had seen me in plays and was a fan. He got me for what I was — a theater brat,” Ruffalo recalled. “It was an amazing opportunity to live in New York and shoot a show about cops and real blue-collar people.”
Reat the article HERE


05 February 20


Kevin Bacon spotted filming
‘City on a Hill’ in Boston
Kevin Bacon and filmmakers rolled back the clock in Boston on Tuesday and Wednesday while filming season two of “City on a Hill,” the Showtime drama set in 1990s Boston.


23 January 19




Emmy-award winner Tom Fontana,'73, is helping the next generation of film and television-makers with an annual scholarship for Buffalo State's television and film arts (TFA) program. Made in memory of his late wife, actress Sagan Lewis, the Tom Fontana/Sagan Lewis TFA scholarship is designated for TFA student internships in New York City, Los Angeles, and other major cities.



18 September 19
Oz: 10 Storylines That Were Never Resolved


5 August 19
Showtime’s ‘City on a Hill’ gets crime, grime,
crooked cops and East Coast, urban life right
"As entertainment, it has some of the finest acting, strongest dialogue and most evocative visuals of ethnic, urban, East Coast neighborhoods anywhere on television. I love that kind of visual texture.

As culture, I believe it could have something valuable to tell us about crime, corruption and what it is going to take for troubled cities like Baltimore to be made safe for citizens. I love TV that’s culturally relevant even more."  DAVID ZURAWIK
Reat the article in THE BALTIMORE SUN


8 August 19
"Oz" Creator Returns To The Berkshire Stage
  With "Screenplay By Stalin"



Listen to the interview here
See the article here



15 June 19


Tom Fontana has a career first in
Showtime's 'City on a Hill'

“I’m always looking for ways to speak about the world we live in now
through another lens,” said Fontana. “And 1992 Boston gives you a
pretty wide palette of what America is going through now in terms of
all those issues.”

Red the article here




6 May 19
Premiers May 7th at 8PM



A revealing look at the foster care system as seen through the eyes of those who know it best. From Oscar-winning filmmakers Deborah Oppenheimer and Mark Jonathan Harris

See the trailer and learn more HERE


14 March 19
George Morfogen, 'Oz' Actor
and Theater Veteran, Dies at 86
Morfogen played the murderer Rebadow on 56 episodes over all six seasons (1997–2003) of Oz, created by Tom Fontana. His character, the oldest inmate at the Oswald State Correctional Facility, possessed a sort of mythical quality, especially after a blackout occurred while he was strapped in the electric chair, sparing his life.


16 February 19







18 February 19



From the Hollywood Reporter story:
"Julianna Margulies detailed her 25-year friendship with Tom Fontana as she presented the Oz creator with the Ian McLellan Hunter award for career achievement. Margulies explained that she marveled at his reported 35 Emmy nominations, with Fontana telling her that couldn't confirm that number because he'd lost count."



20 November 18

‘St. Elsewhere’
now streaming on Hulu
"a binge-worthy watch that reveals a show far ahead of its time"



Read the article here


31 October 18

Tom Fontana & Oliver Stone Team For ‘Dolce Vita’ TV Series About 1950s Rome



Read the details at Deadline Hollywood



7 August 18


Buffalo's Hollywood connection is starring in
'That (Almost) '70s Show'
Read the story at BuffaloNews.com



2 August 18
Deadline Hollywood logo


Tom Fontana Named Showrunner of Showtime’s
 Affleck-Damon Drama ‘City on a Hill’
Written by Chuck MacLean (Boston Strangler) and based on an original idea by Affleck,
City on a Hill is set in early 1990s Boston when the city was rife with violent criminals
emboldened by local law enforcement agencies in which corruption and racism was the norm,
until it suddenly all changed. The drama is a fictional account of what was called the
“Boston Miracle.”

Read the article here: DEADLINE Hollywood



25 May 18


See the Facebook live recording of the event HERE




16 February 18

Homicide: Life on the Street: A Reunion
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Time: 6:30 pm
The Paley Center will reunite key members of the cast and creative team of one of the most influential and acclaimed dramas in television history including: Richard Belzer ("John Munch"); Andre Braugher ("Frank Pembleton"); Tom Fontana, Creator and Writer;  Barry Levinson, Executive Producer.

Tickets go on sale for Paley Center Individual Members onFebruary15 at noon, and to the general public on February 16 at noon. To learn more about the benefits of Paley Membership, including the ability to purchase tickets ahead of the general public, please visit paleycenter.org/join-us.




26 October 17



THE GREAT OZ
Two decades on, it’s clear that the 1997 premiere of Oz was the Big Bang of Great TV.
20 October 17






"You know, it’s funny because when you do something and then you go and revisit it 20 years later, you’re sort of terrified that it’s going to be crap. And I just watched the pilot again for the first time in 20 years and I was happy to see, most of all, how incredible the cast was and about the diversity in the show. Which I think 20 years ago was fairly unheard of. "

12 July 17


 



20 years ago, Oz locked down the prestige-drama formula
JK Simmons from OZ
This series premiered in the late ’90s, featured an expansive cast, and juggled humor and realism in a gritty setting. There were capital-letter themes, lots of nudity, and warring factions, not to mention Edie Falco in a starring role.





7 June 17
Tom invited William Daniels and friends for a get together to celebrate the publication of
“There I Go Again”.




“Bless you, Bill Daniels! Thanks to your wonderful book, I get to live the best years of my life over again—the magical ’80s when we did St. Elsewhere. And not just those wonderful times—I get to relive Two for the Road, The Graduate, and 1776 in the bargain. What a treat!”—Ed Begley Jr.




6 June 17

Vice logo
20 Years of 'OZ': The Show That Changed TV Forever
At the end of the last millennium, HBO gave the green light to a prison drama with a difference, and television hasn't been the same since.

6 June 17


HBO’s Joe Paterno Movie Gets Green Light With
Al Pacino Starring & Barry Levinson Directing



Almost two years after HBO hit pause on its film about the Penn State football scandal starring Al Pacino, the project is moving forward with a green light and a new director. Barry Levinson is set to direct and executive produce the movie, reuniting with Pacino and HBO.


3 August 16



‘Havana Quartet’: Tom Fontana Joins Antonio Banderas Starz Series As EP
Rex/Shutterstock/Associated Press

...looking to be the first U.S. series to film in Cuba on a continuous basis.

read Nellie Andreeva’s article here




15 June 16
ATX logo
Tom Fontana – A Conversation at ATX
BY JARED MUNSON
Fontana stresses that ratings shouldn’t be the main indicator if a show should be renewed or not. It should be about more about what is actually good.
      

spacer



11 June 16

Credit: Omar L. Gallaga / AMERICAN-STATESMAN
How HBO’s ‘Oz’ and ‘The Wire’ changed the game...

Three showrunners of some of the most influential TV dramas of the so-called golden age of TV shared the stage at the ATX Television Festival Saturday morning at Google Fiber Space, describing the birth of HBO’s original dramas, what it was like to create iconic shows such as “The Wire” and “Homicide: Life on the Street” and why despicable characters still make for great TV.           
read the article here



30 March 16


Dramas like 'Game of Thrones' and 'Orange is the New Black' owe a great deal to HBO's original ambitious prison drama
When HBO produced Oz in 1997, American audiences had never seen anything like it on television. The show was ruthlessly violent — criticizing the penal justice system, portraying both rape and homophobia, interrogating race relations and pitting Muslims against Christians. What’s more, it was heavily stylized, beginning each episode with a prelude from wheelchair-bound prisoner Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau), who waxed poetic on larger themes affecting the prisoners in Oswald State Penitentiary.

Read the Inverse article by Emily Gaudette here


3 March 16


You Married Them Once, but What About Twice?




After 22 years, the divorce didn’t work out for Sagan Lewis and Tom Fontana.
They tried to maintain a severed union. And for more than two decades, they were successful. Ms. Lewis, a former actress, lived in the verdant tangle of Hawaii and then Arizona; he moved to the cobblestones of the West Village.
She had a child on her own; he wrote and produced some of the most hard-edge, violent shows on television. They saw each other on occasion and still loved each other, but were not, emphatically, a couple.
And yet, something kept bringing them together again. Finally, as if orchestrated by a Hollywood show-runner, in July, the woman who found comfort in the red rocks of Sedona and the man who lives in a 10,000-square-foot building in Manhattan, remarried.
Read the NYTimes article here


 16 February 16

‘Killing Fields’ Season Finale Clocks 2.5 Million Viewers On Discovery Channel
 By Lisa de Moraes
 

The season finale of Discovery’s first true-crime series Killing Fields clocked 2.45 million viewers in Live + 3 Day viewing – a 44% growth from its debut crowd of 1.7M. The series, from Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana, also delivered a season high in the 25-54 demographic, 1.3M v its first episode’s 762K viewers in the demo. Over its run, the series grew in the demo every week, as it took viewers inside an active criminal investigation.
(read the article here)



23 December 15

How a 1980s TV show became the glue that connected
'I Love Lucy' to 'Law & Order: SVU'

When Tom Fontana was a producer on the show “St. Elsewhere” in the 1980s, he loved to push the boundaries of weirdness — at least as much as he could get away with on network TV...


21 November 14
Rise of Epic TV Series: Tom Fontana, Creator of "Oz"

 The WZB is proud to welcome the recipient of three Primetime Emmys and multiple other awards, Tom Fontana, for an event charting both the artistic and the economic revolution that changed the face of TV over the last one and a half decades.            See the interview here



11 November 14
The TV Legacy of St. Elsewhere's
"Tommy Westphall Universe"

read the article by Jim Vorel here
The show’s one truly lasting and iconic contribution to pop culture stems from its bizarre and totally unexpected ending, and the sprawling web of theories that ending implies. And it all starts with the imagination of an autistic boy named Tommy Westphall.



20 April 14
À NU le spectacle au Vingtième Théâtre
click on the image to see a video promo for the play


Earlier this year an adaptation of “Strip Search” was presented in Paris.
À NU was adapted and directed by Marc SAEZ
 

More images from the production here



TV profile and extended interview



12 April 14

         



11 April 14


Tom Fontana & Chris Long share showrunner secrets.


Two of today's best-respected TV creators shared             production stories at MIPTV.
By Angela Natividad

Read the story here.  Watch the video here




 past TomFontana.com entries are in the Archive