Stephanie Savage (born 1969) is a screenwriter and television producer from Calgary, Canada. Savage is best known for developing The CW's teen drama series Gossip Girl (2007) from the novel series, and being an executive producer of the Fox series The O.C.. In 2010 Savage and creative partner Josh Schwartz created Fake Empire, a production company producing their TV series, films and music.[1]
Career
Savage graduated from the University of Toronto in 1990 with a B.A. in English and Cinema Studies, then from the University of Iowa in 1993 with an M.A. in Film History and Theory. While writing her PhD dissertation for the University of Iowa she moved to Los Angeles, and in 1995 was offered a position at Drew Barrymore's production company Flower Films.[2] Here she dabbled in scriptwriting, handling production rewrites for Charlie's Angels, and met the film's director McG. The two later formed production company Wonderland Sound and Vision in 2001.
In 2003, Jordan Levin, the head of the WB (now known as The CW), wanted a personal show from McG, who grew up in Orange County, California. Stephanie thought of Newport Beach as a setting that would tie in the personal obligation to McG.[3] “You had the music scene at the time, Gwen Stefanie and Sublime, you had surf and skate culture and beach, but also had like republican values and country clubs and gated communities and McMansions, and how do those two things combine?” She said on the podcast ‘Welcome To The O.C. Bitch’. [4]They both pitched the idea to Josh Schwartz, a budding writer whom Stephanie met while working at Flower Films. Josh was set on the idea of doing a teen soap, Dawson's Creek and 90210 was off the air, the three of them started working on a pitch together and pilot script that led The O.C. into being ordered at Fox. Throughout the first season, Josh saw her as more of a writer than an executive, giving her her first writing credit for the episode ‘The Best Chrismukkah Ever’. From then on she would write and produce several episodes of the long-running series.[4]
In September 2016, Savage was announced as an executive producer for the then-upcoming Dynasty reboot series.[5][6]
