An Act of Desperation
Honesty has made Marc Cherry the Most Dangerous Man in Show Business

story by John Kroll

prah Winfrey speaks of "the special genius" of Marc Cherry. A columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger calls him "the most dangerous man in show business." "Desperate Housewives," the hour-long satirical soap opera he created, won this year's Golden Globe Award for best television comedy series. It also set afloat the long-submerged ratings of the ABC network.

Yes. Marc Cherry '85 is having a good year, after several lean ones. "In a business filled with lies, half-truths, and insincere flattery, the most dangerous man is one powerful enough to be honest," wrote the Star-Ledger columnist. Cherry is honest. After writing scripts for "The Golden Girls" for three years, he fell into a long slump, both creative and financial, which he talks about freely. He went two and a half years without a job interview. He wrote the initial "Housewives" script, a process that took 18 months, not because he expected it to get on the air but in the hope that the industry would see him as a writer of hour-long shows instead of the half-hour series on his resume.

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