SU to host special event with Emmy Award-winning writer, producer, director Bill Persky ’53 in New York City May 5

Syracuse University and the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications will host a special event with Emmy Award-winning writer, director and producer Bill Persky ’53 on Wednesday, May 5, in New York City.

“From ‘That Girl’ to ‘Cougars’: How Laughter Helped Move the Women’s Movement Forward,” an informal conversation with Persky moderated by Newhouse School professor Robert Thompson, will be held at 7 p.m. at SU’s Joseph I. Lubin House, 11 E. 61st St., Manhattan. A reception will precede the event at 6 p.m. For more information or to R.S.V.P., contact SU’s Office of Gift Planning at (888) 352-9535 or giftplan@syr.edu.  

Persky is a five-time Emmy Award winner for such shows as “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “That Girl,” “Sid Caesar,” “Bill Cosby” and “Kate & Allie.”

After a start at WNEW radio in the mid-1950s, he moved to California and wrote for a variety of shows, including “The Steve Allen Show,” “The Andy Williams Show,” “Julie Andrews Show,” “McHale’s Navy” and “The Joey Bishop Show,” until he found a home with Carl Reiner on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” After three years as a writer, story editor and winner of two Emmys, Persky and his partner, Sam Denoff, created “That Girl” for Marlo Thomas.

In the 1980s, Persky moved to New York to produce and direct 100 episodes of the series “Kate & Allie,” winning an Emmy for directing.

Thompson is founding director of the Bleier Center and a professor of television-radio-film in the Newhouse School.

The event is co-sponsored by SU, the Bleier Center, the Newhouse School and Pathfinders.