Veteran television writer, producer, and multiple Primetime Emmy nominee Don Reo has been named the recipient of the Writers Guild of America West Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement. The honor is presented to a Guild member who has advanced the literature of television and made outstanding contributions to the profession of television writing.
Reo will be honored at the 2026 Writers Guild Awards on Sunday, March 8, at the JW Marriott L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles. “I am touched and honored to receive this wonderful award,” Reo said. “It gives me hope for the future.”
The award will be presented by Mayim Bialik, who starred as the title character in Reo’s landmark sitcom Blossom. “Don Reo is a living legend: a master of the written word and an inspirational thinker and creator,” Bialik said. “I am honored to be a part of the acknowledgment of his diverse, hilarious, and phenomenal career.”
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1946, Reo began his career writing jokes for touring stand-up comedians before breaking into television in the late 1960s and 1970s. As a staff writer, he contributed to some of the most influential series of television’s golden era, including Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, All in the Family, Sanford and Son, and M*A*S*H.
In the early 1980s, Reo created and served as executive producer on the fantasy-adventure comedy Wizards and Warriors, followed by writing landmark episodes of The Golden Girls and its spinoff Empty Nest.
Inspired by The Catcher in the Rye, Reo went on to create Blossom, one of the rare network primetime series of the 1990s to center on a teenage girl. The show tackled adolescence, depression, single fatherhood, and substance abuse recovery through the perspective of its young protagonist. During Blossom’s five-season run, Reo also co-created and served as showrunner for The John Larroquette Show, which further explored themes of addiction and recovery.
Later in the decade, Reo developed Pearl and served as showrunner on the Hollywood satire Action, which The New York Times famously described as “truly subversive and daring in its scabrous attitude.”
In the 2000s, Reo returned to family-centered storytelling as co-creator and executive producer of My Wife & Kids, earning BET Comedy Awards nominations for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. He later teamed with Damon Wayans and veteran writer-producer Ric Swartzlander on Rodney, followed by a stint as writer and executive producer on Everybody Hates Chris from 2006 to 2009.
From 2003 to 2015, Reo served as executive producer on Two and a Half Men, becoming co-showrunner in 2012 alongside Jim Patterson. Over its 12-season run, the series earned 46 Primetime Emmy nominations and nine wins. Reo and Patterson later reunited to co-create and executive-produce The Ranch, which followed a former professional football player returning to his family’s Colorado ranch.
Named for one of the most influential writers in entertainment history, the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement is the WGAW’s highest honor for television writing. Past recipients include Vince Gilligan, Linda Bloodworth Thomason, Yvette Lee Bowser, Merrill Markoe, Jenji Kohan, Diane English, Aaron Sorkin, Steven Bochco, Susan Harris, Stephen J. Cannell, Shonda Rhimes, David Chase, Marta Kauffman and David Crane, Larry David, Garry Marshall, and Alison Cross.
It is a fitting recognition for a career that helped define generations of television storytelling — and continues to influence the medium today. The ceremony will also be livestreamed via the WGAW’s YouTube channel and at awards.wga.org.
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