Peter Mehlman - Early Career

Early Career

Peter Mehlman began his career as a sportswriter for the Washington Post. He made his first move from print journalism to television writing when, from 1982 to 1984, he wrote for and produced the television series SportsBeat with Howard Cosell. For the next five years he returned to freelance magazine writing in New York for magazines such as the New York Times Magazine, GQ and Esquire.

In 1989 he moved to Los Angeles and was offered the opportunity to write a script for Seinfeld by Larry David. As he had never written a script up to that point ("Pre-Seinfeld, I'd barely written any dialogue in my life" ), Mehlman submitted instead a short humorous piece he had written for the New York Times Magazine. Jerry Seinfeld was so impressed by the piece that he gave Mehlman a writing assignment, out of which came the series' first freelance episode, "The Apartment." Mehlman was hired for the first full season of "Seinfeld as a program consultant (1991-92) and, over the next six years, worked his way up to co-executive producer in the show's last season after Larry David's departure.

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