Steven Peterman '72 (Writer & Producer, HANNA MONTANA)

By Robin Russin '79

I've known Steven Peterman '72 for years, since our kids went to pre-school together, and so I know he isn't just a funny guy. He's a warm, generous and modest guy, too, and the combination has served him well; sometimes, nice guys do finish first. We sat down over happy-hour sangria to talk about how he got here, and what he's been up to recently.

Starting out as an actor, Peterman turned to writing as a more secure profession (go figure). It proved to be the right choice: along with his long-time writing partner and fellow former actor Gary Dontzig, Peterman went on to write for some of the best shows on TV, winning three Primetime Emmys and being nominated for two Humanitas Awards along the way.

Starting as story editors on the original writing staff of "Murphy Brown" he and Dontzig rose to executive producers of the legendary series, then went on to develop "Suddenly Susan." After stints on the critically acclaimed "State Of Grace" and the final season of "Becker," Peterman and Dontzig co-wrote (with Michael Poryes) the pilot of the Disney sensation "Hannah Montana." Along with Poryes, Peterman has remained with the series as executive producer, eliciting this comment from his teenage son: "Dad, you've made me a legend."

Peterman's parents ran a modest Italian restaurant in Milwaukee and had to take out loans to send him to Harvard, hoping their math/science-challenged son might at least become a lawyer. Unfortunately, the lure of what little theater there was at Harvard proved irresistible. Peterman became involved in numerous productions, including the Hasty Pudding revue, where he scored the lead female ingénue "Jack Lemmon" role; that was the year Dustin Hoffman was honored, and Steve was immediately star-struck. He does confess to having composed a few pieces for the Lampoon but says he was too intimidated to turn them in.

Somehow he got into law school—"It was the 70's and standards were much lower," he explains--but tried to postpone the inevitable by taking a leave of absence to work on a kibbutz in Israel. Before going off, he re-applied to law school at the University of Wisconsin for the following year, but also to Circle in the Square's theatre school in New York. "The universe will tell me where I belong," he thought. The universe being perverse, however, he got into both.

After three weeks of law school, he realized there was a problem. "I was pathologically incapable of studying," he recalls. "I would go to class, then come home and stare at the TV until Madison programming went off the air and that Indian-head thing came on. Younger alumni can ask your parents what that means."

The night before his first quiz, he made the call to his parents, telling them he was going to New York. "They were sick, but supportive. I thought my dad was going to throw up." But within months of arriving in New York, Peterman was on Broadway, playing, ironically, a neurotic young law professor ("Clearly I was typecast"). Eventually his agent suggested he go to Los Angeles. The first week he arrived, he landed a successful showcase, and he continued to work as an actor for several more years.

By 1984, Peterman--now married to his lovely and long-suffering wife, Susan--realized he needed a new plan. Several of his actor friends had turned to writing and thought he should give it a try. "I didn't want to. Writing is much harder than going to the gym and waiting for an audition."

But eventually bills, desperation and Susan's artfully placed heavy sighs proved too powerful. That's when Gary Dontzig appeared.

"We met doing a play at the Old Globe in San Diego, and then I ran into him at the gym one day after a miserable audition." When he told Dontzig he was thinking about writing, Dontzig suggested they get together and knock some ideas around.

"He was gay, I was straight. Neither of us thought much of the other's acting. And we were both unemployed. It was the beginning of a wonderful twenty-year partnership." Peterman credits Dontzig with a motto that has pulled him through many tough times: "When in doubt, say yes--because when you say yes, you never know what can happen."

They wrote two spec scripts together, which got them their first job for Turner Broadcasting on the half-hour kids' show, "Rocky Road." The series creator, Arthur Annecharico, had been a television ad man who realized he could make original programming cheaper than the shows he was selling ads for. A Roger Corman of original cable programming, he hired young, inexperienced writers who learned to work at break-neck speed on tight budgets. "A whole group of us, including Dan O'Shannon, Rob Ulin and George Beckerman, came out of there and went on to careers in network TV."

After writing/producing 63 episodes in 71 weeks for Annecharico, the team was able to write a script for a new dramedy at Warner Brothers, "Just In Time," produced by John Wells. "They only shot six episodes and ours was number seven, but someone gave it to Diane English, who was putting together the original staff of "Murphy Brown." She hired us and that's the show that made us."

After "Murphy," Peterman and Dontzig discovered they had a gift for fixing troubled shows. "'Suddenly Susan' was a pilot that wasn't really there yet." Originally shot as the story of a children's book editor in Pasadena whose safe life is turned upside down when she's ordered to "babysit" a wacky older author, the pilot, starring Brooke Shields, didn't test well. This created a large problem for NBC, since the show was scheduled to premiere in the plum spot right after "Seinfeld." NBC brought in Steve and Gary, who reconceived the show, transforming Shields into a shy copywriter who gets the chance to have her own column as a suddenly single woman in San Francisco. They surrounded the inherently sweet and earnest Shields with a cast of crazies including Kathy Griffith and Judd Nelson, and the show went on to a successful four-year run.

After "Suddenly Susan," Peterman and Dontzig helped friends Brenda Lilly and Hollis Rich bring the Humanitas-nominated "State of Grace" to life and were ready to move on to hour and feature projects. Then Disney approached them to take a look at the pilot script for "Hannah Montana," which they had been trying to cast and now believed was not ready for production. Peterman saw promise in the series, and he and Dontzig did a rewrite that impressed both Disney and Michael Poryes, the original writer. The three executives produced the pilot, and Peterman is particularly proud of pushing for the casting of then-unknown Miley Cyrus, who won the part over more experienced young actresses because of her fresh, unpredictable quality. The rest is history.

So what did Harvard contribute to Steve Peterman's long, successful run?

"In terms of my career, it's been absolutely useless—other than as an opportunity for people to make snide comments, usually delivered in a terrible Boston accent."

More seriously, Steve says, "what it gave me was a belief that I was capable of achieving something, regardless of what my external situation might indicate at the time. It gave me a sense of hubris that has served me well. It made me brave. At Harvard, I was surrounded by so many people who were so talented in so many ways, and it made me want to earn my place among those people."

And his parents got to see him win an Emmy.