Lowell Ganz
| Lowell Ganz | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 31, 1948 New York City, New York, United States |
| Occupation | Screenwriter, television writer, producer |
| Years active | 1980—present |
| Spouse(s) | Jeanne Russo Ganz (1976–present; 3 children) |
Lowell Ganz (born August 31, 1948) is an American screenwriter, television writer, and television producer. He is the long-time writing partner of Babaloo Mandel.
Ganz was born in New York City, the son of Jean (née Farber) and Irving Ganz, an arts supply executive. Both of his parents were first-generation Americans born in New York. His mother's family is of Polish Jewish origin from the Białystok area; his father's family is of Hungarian Jewish origin from Maramaros County, in what is today northern Romania.
Ganz grew up in Queens, New York. He briefly attended Queens College, City University of New York, where he and his friend Mark Rothman wrote several comedic skits and shows for school productions. After Rothman's father Abe—a chauffeur who sometimes drove for The Mike Douglas Show—was able to pass a spec script of theirs to Tony Randall, the two got a try-out writing gig on Randall's hit TV show The Odd Couple. However, the producers of the show would only pay for them to come to Los Angeles one-way. Ganz and Rothman dropped out of college and headed west to take the job. After being fired—causing them to briefly live in their car and contemplate driving back across the country to New York—and then re-hired by producer Garry Marshall, the two became regular writers on the show; and Ganz eventually became Head Writer.
That led to a career in Hollywood, writing for a string of television situation comedies. After writing for the short-lived sitcom Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers in 1974, Ganz moved on to writing for Happy Days and co-created two of its spin-off series, Laverne and Shirley and Joanie Loves Chachi.
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