Copp, Rick 1964-

views updated

Copp, Rick 1964-

PERSONAL:

Born August 20, 1964, in Bar Harbor, ME; son of Richard (a cancer researcher) and Joan Jordan Copp. Education: New York University, B.F.A., 1986; also attended University of California, Los Angeles.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Jonathan Pecarsky, William Morris Agency, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER:

Writer, screenwriter, television writer. Developer of children's programming for television production company, New York, NY; Witt-Thomas-Harris, staff writer for television series.

WRITINGS:

SCREENPLAYS

(With Laurice Elehwany) The Brady Bunch Movie, Paramount, 1995.

(Uncredited; with Laurice Elehwany) Howard Stern's Private Parts, Paramount, 1996.

(With David A. Goodman) Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost, Warner Bros., 1999.

(Uncredited) The Flintstones: Viva Rock Vegas, DreamWorks/Universal, 1999.

Also author of unproduced screenplays.

TELEVISION SERIES; WITH OTHERS

The Golden Girls, National Broadcasting Company, 1988-90.

Babes, Fox Broadcasting Company, 1990-91.

Flesh ‘n’ Blood, National Broadcasting Company, 1991.

Rhythm & Blues, National Broadcasting Company, 1992.

Flying Blind, Fox Broadcasting Company, 1993.

Wings, National Broadcasting Company, 1993-94.

Dream On, Home Box Office, 1994.

(And creator and executive producer) Team Knight Rider, syndicated, 1997-98.

Secret Agent Man, United Paramount Network, 1999.

Jack of All Trades, syndicated, 2000.

Homewood, P.I., Columbia Broadcasting System, 2000.

Teen Titans (animated), Cartoon Network, 2003.

Soccer Moms, American Broadcasting Company, 2005.

Soccer Loonatics Unleashed, Warner Bros. Television, 2005.

Chi Ro: The Secret, Cross Media/KiKa, 2008.

Also writer of unproduced television scripts.

OTHER

(With David A. Goodman and Brian Levant) The Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space (television movie), Starz!, 1995.

The Actor's Guide to Murder (novel), Kensington Publishing Corp. (New York, NY), 2003.

The Actor's Guide to Adultery (novel), Kensington Publishing Corp. (New York, NY), 2004.

The Actor's Guide to Greed (novel), Kensington Publishing Corp. (New York, NY), 2005.

Fingerprints and Facelifts (novel), Kensington Publishing Corp. (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Rick Copp is a television writer, screenwriter, and novelist whose career began in children's programming. Among his credits are screenplays for The Brady Bunch Movie and for popular television series, including The Golden Girls and Wings. Well established as a sitcom writer, Copp found his way into novel writing when his attempts at launching a gay detective series for television faltered. Copp noted on his Web site: "I had always wanted to write a gay detective show. I pitched one at Universal, but the executive very gently told me the time wasn't right yet." When the project was also rejected at the more youth-oriented MTV, Copp decided to try another tactic. "I wasn't going to let my ambition to create a gay detective die," he explained. "If the timing wasn't right to land one on television, I would find another medium." Thus, in 2001 he began writing a novel about a trio of detectives, one gay, one straight, and one questioning. The result was his 2003 book, The Actor's Guide to Murder. This was followed by two more novels in the same series.

In 2007 Copp began a new detective series, this one featuring three female detectives whose careers had blossomed in the 1980s. The first in the series was Fingerprints and Facelifts, in which these women, retired and in their fifties, must, as Copp noted on his Web site, "re-team to find out who from their past is targeting their grown children." The three women, known as the L.A. Dolls, all have safer and quieter lives now than they did when battling the bad guys over two decades before, but with their children endangered, they answer the call once again. A Kirkus Reviews critic was not impressed with this effort, feeling that Copp "provides too much backstory and too many suspects for the Dolls' debut to slide down as easily as it might." However, a higher assessment came from a Publishers Weekly contributor who thought that "Copp's thrill-a-minute pacing, vibrant style and likable characters make an unbeatable team." Similarly, BookReview.com contributor Harriet Klausner termed Fingerprints and Facelifts "a terrific private investigative thriller in which readers have an idea of what could have happened to Charlie's Angels two decades after the highlight films stopped running."