Harry & Renee Longstreet - Crew Member of the Month

 

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.