Background and career
Marc Cherry (born March 23, 1962) is an American television writer and producer. He is best known for creating the ABC dramedy series Desperate Housewives and Lifetime series Devious Maids, having previously been a writer-producer for The Golden Girls.
Marc Cherry was born in Long Beach, California, and lived briefly in Oklahoma during his childhood. His father was an accountant whose work brought him back to California. After graduating from Troy High School in Fullerton, Cherry attended California State University, Fullerton. He graduated from the school's theater program in 1985 and initially considered a career in performance. After winning $15,000 as a contestant on The $100,000 Pyramid in 1986, he decided to move to Hollywood and pursue writing work. His move came at a bad time; the 1988 writers strike hit as soon as Cherry arrived. Cherry broke into the industry by working as Designing Women star Dixie Carter's personal assistant.
In 2007, Newsweek described Cherry as a "somewhat conservative, gay Republican." He was the 2006 recipient of the Log Cabin Republicans' American Visibility Award. However, in 2018, Cherry said that he "stopped being a Republican the second [Donald Trump's] foot hit the escalator."
On September 12, 2020, his mother, Martha Kay Cherry, who inspired the characters of Bree Van de Kamp and Lynette Scavo in Desperate Housewives, died.
In 1990, he became a writer and producer for the long-running hit sitcom The Golden Girls, and later its short-lived spinoff The Golden Palace. Cherry next co-created The 5 Mrs. Buchanans, a sitcom centered on four women married to brothers and their difficult mother-in-law, which had a brief run on CBS during the 1994–1995 season. Cherry also co-created The Crew (1995). On his own, he later created Some of My Best Friends, a 2001 sitcom that was based in part on the 1997 film Kiss Me, Guido.
In 2002, a conversation with his mother inspired him to develop a show about the fractured lives of four upper middle class suburban women. After HBO, FOX, CBS, NBC, Showtime, and Lifetime all passed on the show, circumstances changed for Cherry's show when his agent was arrested and sent to jail for embezzlement. His new agents brought the show to the attention of ABC, which decided to pick it up. The series, Desperate Housewives, was an immediate ratings smash and generated enormous national (and subsequently, international) debate. Cherry received several lucrative offers from various parties, but chose to sign a long-term deal with Touchstone, since their co-brand, the ABC network, had shown faith in Desperate Housewives when other companies passed. Cherry featured several actors on Housewives with whom he had previously worked. Mark Moses, who played Paul Young, and Harriet Sansom Harris, who played Felicia Tilman, were both cast members of The 5 Mrs. Buchanans. In season three, Cherry cast former boss Dixie Carter in the role of Gloria Hodge, Orson's unhinged mother. Actor Alec Mapa, who appeared in Some of My Best Friends, appeared on "Housewives" in a recurring role as Gabrielle's stylist. Cherry appeared in a cameo as one of Susan's moving men on the final episode of Desperate Housewives.
