Paul Redford is an American television writer and producer. He is best known as a writer for The West Wing.^[1] His other writing credits include work on Dirty Sexy Money,^[2] Big Love,^[3] The Newsroom,^[4] and Madam Secretary.^[5] His work as a producer includes The West Wing, The Unit,^[6] and Journeyman.^[7] In 2023, Redford joined the Hallmark Channel series When Calls the Heart^[8] in its 10th season as a co-executive producer.

Early life

Redford’s family moved from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to the Kansas City metropolitan area when he was in the 10th grade.^[9] He and his family lived in Mission Hills, Kansas, and he graduated from Shawnee Mission East High School in 1976.^[9] In high school, Redford was a self-described “theatre nerd.”^[9]

Redford earned a degree in history and literature from Harvard University in 1980.^[9] While at Harvard, he wrote for The Harvard Lampoon and appeared in numerous plays, including experimental work by classmate Peter Sellars.^[10]

After college, Redford spent 10 years acting in regional theater productions^[9] for groups like the Boston Shakespeare Company^[10] and the Denver Center Theatre Company (DCTC)^[11] before moving to Hollywood.^[9]

Career

Early career

In the early 1990s, Redford divided his time between writing for television and acting in commercials.^[9] During this time, he co-wrote — with Ed Redlich — the Lifetime Television Christmas movie Ebbie, which starred Susan Lucci.^[12] His first job writing scripts for prime-time television was for the 1995 Fox TV sitcom Partners.^[9]

The West Wing

Redford was hired by Aaron Sorkin to write for the ABC comedy-drama Sports Night. Redford next joined the writing team for Sorkin on The West Wing .^[9]

On The West Wing, Redford co-wrote (with Sorkin and Lawrence O’Donnell Jr.) the episode “Take This Sabbath Day,” which won the 2001 Humanitas Prize in the 60 Minute Network or Syndicated Television category.^[13] In addition to the Humanitas Prize, this episode was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Television: Episodic Drama in 2000.

Redford and Sorkin were again nominated for the WGA Award 60-minute episodic drama in 2001 for The West Wing: "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail," and in 2002 for The West Wing: "Game On."

Redford was promoted to supervising producer in the second season of The West Wing. He and his fellow producers won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for The West Wing in 2003. The production team was nominated for an Emmy Award again for work on The West Wing in 2004, the series’ fifth season.^[14]

Other Work

Redford worked as an executive producer for LAX, The Unit, and Vanished. He was a consulting producer on Kevin Falls’ series Journeyman. In 2008, Redford joined the crew of Dirty Sexy Money as a writer and co-executive producer. In 2010, he wrote the Big Love fourth-season episode “The Greater Good” and was the co-executive producer for two episodes in the series. Redford and the writing team for The Newsroom (Brendan Fehily, David M. Handelman, Cinque Henderson, Ian Reichbach, Amy Rice, Aaron Sorkin, Gideon Yago) were nominated for the 2012 Writers Guild of America Award for Television: New Series.^[15]

During 2014-2015, Redford worked as a writer and producer for Madam Secretary, starring Téa Leoni.^[16] From 2016-2018 he worked on Designated Survivor, starring Kiefer Sutherland. In 2023, Redford began work as a writer and co-executive producer for When Calls the Heart, a Hallmark Channel series in its 10th season, developed by Michael Landon Jr.^[8]

Filmography

Producer

Writer