Toby Ziegler - Character Biography

Character Biography

Tobias Zachary Ziegler was born December 23, 1954. His childhood and family details are not fully known; he was from a working class background, and grew up in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York City in a Yiddish speaking family. His father, Jules "Julie" Ziegler was an immigrant who, according to one episode, "needed the G.I. Bill", implying that he fought in either the Second World War or the Korean War. He made women's raincoats for a living; however, prior to this he worked for Murder, Inc. and served time in prison, complicating his relationship with Toby.

Toby's other relatives are less visible on the show. His mother had been dead for twelve years as of season three. Both he and his father have mentioned sisters, whom Toby says took him to protest rallies in the mid-1960s, as well as nieces and nephews. His younger brother, Dr. David Ziegler, is a mission specialist at NASA who commits suicide after learning that he has terminal cancer. He has also made reference to a grandfather who lived to be 96 years old, but for the last twenty years of his life "thought the Habsburgs still lived in a big palace in Vienna".

In Season 4, Episode 19 Toby says that his draft number for Vietnam was not called. Toby was once married to Andrea Wyatt, who served as a Congresswoman from a district centered on Baltimore, Maryland. They divorced in the first year of the Bartlet administration after unsuccessful attempts to have children. Toward the end of the Bartlet re-election campaign, however, Andi became pregnant with twins. Following this, Toby begins to actively pursue a renewed relationship with Andi. After his initial proposals of marriage are rejected, and imagining that she is making him chase her, he sets about attempting to eradicate the behaviors that Andi has found irritating in the past. He forces himself to eat salads, and sells his bachelor pad, buying Andi the property she has always considered her "dream house". Andi is mortified by the gesture, refusing his proposal once more and telling him that he is "too sad" for her. Moments later, her water breaks, and the twins - named Huck and Molly - are born shortly thereafter. Huck is named for Andi's grandfather, and Molly for Molly O'Connor, the U.S. Secret Service agent who is killed in the line of duty on the day of their birth.

Toby is rather morose, a characteristic that is reflected in his typical wardrobe, usually dull shades of gray and brown. He is something of an idealist, often less willing than his colleagues and the president to compromise on his political values. He has proven to be a more than formidable opponent in an argument, easily able to hold his own against even Bartlet himself. He is also known for his acerbic wit.

A Reform Jew, Toby sometimes attends synagogue on Sabbath, but is not observant of the Torah and its commandments. At one point he suggests to Josh Lyman that, because he is from a Jewish neighborhood of New York City rather than the affluent town of Westport, Connecticut, he is more Jewish than Josh.

Toby's education is less well-established than that of his colleagues. He seems to have a particular fondness for grammatical correctness: he is able to name all the types of punctuation from memory, and claimed to have discovered a possible typographical error in the US Constitution which, he believes, could change the interpretation of the Takings Clause. He attended City College of New York - he recalled during Season 5 that he had met the Chief Justice of the United States while a student at City College.

Toby is a fan of the New York Yankees. He claimed to have attended 441 games at Yankee Stadium as of May 2002.