TV Writer-Producer Alison Cross to Receive WGAW’s 2018 Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement
LOS ANGELES – Veteran television writer-producer Alison Cross (Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story, Roe vs. Wade, Murder in the First) is set to receive the Writers Guild of America West’s 2018 Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement, given to a Guild member who has “advanced the literature of television and made outstanding contributions to the profession of the television writer.”
Cross will be honored at the 2018 Writers Guild Awards West Coast ceremony on Sunday, February 11, at The Beverly Hilton.
“The Board of Directors is truly excited to give this award to such a skilled dramatist as Alison. She has a long and varied list of credits, but in all her scripts, whether on staff or as the sole creator, you hear the voice of a writer driven by the ideals of integrity and justice. Her impressive body of work has at times influenced society at large, and serves as an inspiration to all writers in the field,” said WGAW President David A. Goodman.
Cross is currently a co-executive producer on CBS’ S.W.A.T. series, and most recently served as an executive producer on The Good Fight, CBS All Access’ The Good Wife spinoff. Her recent TV credits include serving as a consulting producer on USA’s Queen of the South, as well as an executive producer on TNT’s legal crime drama series Murder in the First, which reunited her with writer-producer Steven Bochco. She also worked with Bochco on TNT’s Raising the Bar (as consulting producer), ABC’s Commander in Chief (as co-executive producer), and ABC’s legal drama series Philly, which she co-created with Bochco and served as co-executive producer.
Cross is perhaps best known for penning the acclaimed, ground-breaking 1995 telefilm Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story. She earned an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or a Special, as well as a WGA Original Long Form nomination for her work on the true-life tale of a military officer’s legal challenge to fight her involuntary discharge after coming out as a lesbian.
She also penned the 1989 highly charged, still-topical telefilm Roe vs. Wade, for which she shared an Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special, in addition to receiving an Emmy nomination (Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or a Special) and garnering the WGAW’s inaugural Paul Selvin Award, given to a Guild member whose script “best embodies the constitutional rights and civil rights and liberties which are indispensable to the survival of free writers everywhere.”
Her screenwriting credits include co-writing the 1996 film Blood and Wine (Screenplay by Nick Villiers and Alison Cross, Story by Nick Villiers and Bob Rafelson), which co-starred Jack Nicholson and Michael Caine.
A Los Angeles native, Cross attended UCLA, where she received a B.A., followed by an M.J. with a specialization in documentary film.
Named after one of the most influential writers in entertainment history, the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement is the WGAW’s highest award for television writing. Past Television Laurel Award recipients include Steven Bochco, Susan Harris, Stephen J. Cannell, David Chase, Larry David, Diane English, Marshall Herskovitz & Ed Zwick, Joshua Brand & John Falsey, Garry Marshall, Shonda Rhimes, Marta Kauffman & David Crane, and most recently Aaron Sorkin.
For a press photo of 2018 TV Laurel Award honoree Alison Cross, click here.
Photo Credit: Michael Jones
The Writers Guild Awards honor outstanding writing in film, television, new media, videogames, news, radio, promotional, and graphic animation categories. The 2018 Writers Guild Awards (70th Annual) will be presented at concurrent ceremonies on Sunday, February 11, 2018, in Los Angeles at the Beverly Hilton and in New York City at the Edison Ballroom. For more information about the 2018 Writers Guild Awards, please visit www.wga.org or www.wgaeast.org.
For media inquiries about the 2018 WGA Los Angeles show, please contact Gregg Mitchell in the WGAW Communications Department at: (323) 782-4651 or email: Gregg Mitchell.
For media inquiries about the 2018 WGA New York City show, please contact Jason Gordon in the WGAE Communications Department at (212) 767-7809 or email: Jason Gordon.
The Writers Guild of America West (WGAW) and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) are labor unions representing writers in motion pictures, television, cable, digital media, and broadcast news. The Guilds negotiate and administer contracts that protect the creative and economic rights of their members; conduct programs, seminars, and events on issues of interest to writers; and present writers’ views to various bodies of government. For more information on the Writers Guild of America West, visit www.wga.org. For more information on the Writers Guild of America, East, visit www.wgaeast.org.