Renee Schonfeld was born on July 19, 1940
in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Morrey and Faye Schonfeld. Having
attended San Pedro Senior High School
and UCLA, She achieved a Bachelor in Arts in English at the University
of California at Los Angeles, 1961. Also
in 1961 she married Jack Silas and had 3 childen Sean, Lynne and Carolyn Jo
Silas. (Carolyn appeared in Fame as
Laura Mackie). Renee Divorced Jack in 1973 and in 1977 Married Harry Longstreet.
Harry Stephen Longstreet was born in and
attended Chadwick School. The son of Screenpaly writer Stephen Longstreet,
Harry initially went into work as a stock broker and later working for a Public
Relations firm. He married, had 2
children, his son Greg would feature in the Fame episode "Alice Doesn't
Work Here Anymore" playing the role of Gordon), then divorced and met
Renee.
The couple merged their families with all 5
children living with them and Renee decided she's like to try her hand at
script writing. The couple were friends with Gerald Isenberg, who was meant to
be Fame's original Executive Producer. He worked on the pilot but was replaced
by Bill Blinn for the series.
Gerald had hired them for a TV series
called Julie Farr M.D. (also known as Having Babies) in 1978.
Originally to write a back up script but the producers liked it so much
they decided to shoot it and brought the Longstreet on as story editors. The
series only lasted 8 episodes.
The Longstreets then moved on to write for
other shows like V: The Final Battle and TV Series, Father Murphy, Stop Susan
Williams, Trauma Center and Voyagers. In their own words they became
"hired guns". They also acted as producers on some of these shows and
Harry started to direct.
In 1984 they became supervising producers
and writers on "Hot Pursuit" which was created by Kenneth Johnson
and starred Fame's Eric Pierpoint. Billy
Hufsey would also guest in one of the episodes.
Then came Fame. There were told that it was
the final season and that MGM just wanted another season so there would be
enough episodes to repeat in syndication.
After fame they continued writing and
Producing working on shows like Rags to Riches, Shadow Chasers and Alien
Nation.
In the late 90s they retired and currently
live in Bainbridge Island, Washington.
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