Gary Levine with retirement after 40 years in TV programming

Gary Levine was on a mission when he came to Showtime in 2001. While his term of office ends next month, Levine can look into the mirror and say without a small degree of pride: completed mission.

Levine came to Paramount Global ownership Showtime to help what was a Premium Cable Canal at the time, evolved his programming strategy of one rooted in a slate of original Made-for-TV films to a schedule of recurring weekly comedy and drama series. It was the logical move for the time being. It was the decision that Showtime helped finally come out of the long shadow of HBO to become an own strength.

From “weeds” to “yellowjackets”, Levine has been the steady hand who guided each original series that has been rolled from the production tray of the babler. Showrunners say that he is the rare director who has the institutional knowledge and confidence to help them through the minefield of launching a series – and the even more difficult job to keep it up.

“Gary was in the room when I threw ‘The Chi’ eight years ago, and I hear that he was a huge advocate for the series before I even came in,” Lena Waithe, Maker-exporting producer of the drama series on his way to the eighth season. “He not only believed in the potential of the show, but he has always believed in me – not only as an artist, but as a person. He is the kind of Exec that we no longer see.”

For Levine it was the challenge to form new ideas and to work with emerging multi-hyphenaten such as Waithe who kept him busy for so long.

“Showtime hired me to try to put them on the map in series. Slowly but surely, we could do it for many opportunities,” he says. “And the way we could do it was to do nothing than to be ambitious.”

During most of his showtime years, Levine served as an executive VP of the original series and worked under four different entertainment chefs: Jerry Offsay, Bob Greenblatt, David Nevins and most recently Chris McCarthy, who is also Co-CEO from Paramount Global.

Levine’s CV for Showtime included 10 years at ABC and Time on Icebox.com, Warner Bros. TV and Columbia pictures television. Before that, the indigenous New Yorker also spent 10 years as a senior leader at Non -Profit Theater companies, including Roundabout Theater Company and the Williamstown Theater Festival. He could have had the top programming position with a number of Showtime competitors. But Levine thought he should not mess with a good thing.

“Fortunately, the people I worked for could keep my job incredibly pure,” explains Levine. “What I like to do is be in a room with writers and talk about story, talk about a script, talk about austerity and talk about concepts.”

According to McCarthy, Levine’s background in Theater gave him enormously strong instincts for identifying talent.

“He helped bring all these subversive anti -heroes and gave distinctive creative voices the opportunity to do their first series during Showtime,” says McCarthy. “Whether it was ‘Dexter’ or ‘weeds’ or ‘nurse Jackie’ or ‘Millions’ – these were complicated, brilliantly defective characters that we fell in love with and rooted.”

McCarthy calls Levine ‘an artists’ executive’.

Clyde Phillips, showrunner of “Dexter”, “Nurse Jackie” and the upcoming “Dexter: Resurrection” agree. The two have worked together since Levine moved from the east coast to Hollywood in the mid -1980s to work for Columbia Pictures Television.

“His dedication to telling stories is mainly,” says Phillips. “He understands what is needed to tell a good story and make a good show. He has become quite famous for notes who come from the heart and from a great spirit. It is always about making the show better.”

Alex Gansa, Showrunner and executive producer of “Homeland” with Howard Gordon, said that Levine deserves the honor of helping that ship for eight seasons.

“Look at the shows he put in the air, look at the shows he shredded, there is no doubt that he has raised the form,” says Gansa. “He played a crucial role in every important decision for the entire series of the series. I can’t tell you how rare that is for a director. The man is unique in his kind.”

Gordon notes that Levine bought the very first pilot script ever (“Country Estates”) that he and Gansa sold as TV writers in 1990. Ten years later, Gordon would be co-founder of Icebox.com.

Levine “not only has the critical capacity to identify a problem, but the creativity and confidence to offer a potential solution, and the rare capacity to release his ego from his ideas,” says Gordon. ‘Gary’s intellectual honesty and critical capacity to challenge an idea or a scene or a character has inevitably indicates everything we did on’ Homeland ‘. ‘

The EXIT of Levine comes after the showtime was folded in the Paramount+ Streaming Banner in 2023. For Levine, that was a signal that the time had come for him to start a new chapter.

“Unfortunately, Chris and the company had to make Sophie’s choice, and they chose Paramount+. It was a smart business movement, but a bit painful for the man who helped to build showtime,” says Levine. “Because of all this, Chris has been incredibly supportive and honest and respectful for me.”

Levine retires from the executive ranks. But he expects to continue to work with friends and acquaintances in an advisory capacity. The most satisfying part of his work is the feeding of young writers and helping screenwriters to make the leap to episodic TV.

“I am proud of the writers we moved to television,” says Levine, referring to prominent scribes such as Ilene Chaiken (“The L Word”), Michael Hurst (“The Tudors”), John Logan (“Penny Dreadful”) and the “Billion” Duo by Brian Koppelman and David Levien.

Looking back on his career, Levine credits a trail blower in the industry for giving an opportunity because he tried to make what a difficult transition from theater to TV could have made. Barbara Corday, the former Columbia Pictures Television President, opened the door wide for him. “She said,” I don’t know what you can do, but I would like to see. Let’s give each other a year, “Levine recalls.” That was 1985. She set me up for success. ”

After 40 years on TV, Levine offers important advice to the rising generation of programming and production excessives.

“If you create an environment that feels creatively exciting and liberating, in a place that is stable, with adult execs that are not there to hear the sound of their own voice, but really want to help be a North Star for the writers – who gets his own positive momentum,” he says.

***

Vintage Variety: From July 22, 1985, edition of Daily variety