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Laurie Zaks

American television producer

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 24, 2025
Entity authorityQ20687653 ↗
Source-derived summary

Laurie Ann Zaks is an American television producer. She has been the President of Television at Mandeville Films since 2013. From 1981 to 1984, she worked at NBC's Saturday Night Live. She served as an executive producer on ABC's drama series Castle (2009–2013), and on the short-lived ABC drama series' Wicked City (2015) and The Family (2016). Her son is film composer Zachary "Zach" Robinson.

Career

Zaks previously worked as Vice President of the Comedy Department at Comedy Central, where she was one of the executives originally hired to launch the network in New York City; Vice President of Series Programs at CBS, where she oversaw series such as Everybody Loves Raymond; and Senior Vice President of Series Programs at UPN, where she oversaw series such as Veronica Mars and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Following her stints at these companies, she became President of Armyan Bernstein's Beacon Television. At Beacon Television, Zaks developed the pilot and served as executive producer of Castle for the ABC network. She was executive producer of the series from its first season in 2009, until its fifth season in 2013, when she left to work for Mandeville.

Zaks launched her own production company, Second Season, in 2012.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Laurie Zaks” is american television producer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Laurie, Zaks and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2013, 1981, 1984, 2009—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1964-07-11. For this dossier, Laurie, Zaks and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american television producer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q20687653. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2013, 1981, 1984 and 2009.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Laurie Zaks”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Laurie Zaks primary sources, Laurie Zaks archive and Laurie research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Laurie Zaks”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Laurie Zaks” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.