Early life

Kohan was born to a Jewish family in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of novelist Rhea Kohan (née Arnold), and writer, producer, and composer, Alan W. "Buz" Kohan. Kohan has two older brothers, twins Jono and David. She comes from a show business family: Buz is an Emmy Award-winning television writer, and David is an Emmy Award-winning television producer.

Kohan says that Buz was the "king of variety television in his day," writing and producing the Oscars and other variety shows. Her mother was a writer. She grew up in Beverly Hills, California. She first attended Brandeis University, and transferred to Columbia University as a sophomore, where she graduated, with a degree in English language and literature, in 1991.

Career

Early career

On her beginnings, an ex-boyfriend told her that she had "a better chance of getting elected to Congress than getting on the staff of a television show".

Kohan's first job in the industry was with Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which Kohan wrote one episode of, and later said was a "rough entrance" to the business. After a series of writing jobs on shows such as Mad About You, Tracey Takes On..., and Friends, she collaborated with her brother, David Kohan, writing an outside script for Will & Grace. The siblings also worked together on the sitcom The Stones for CBS, which was ultimately unsuccessful. She has discussed the differences between her and her brother's career saying, "David took the big, commercial, funny route; I was always a little darker personally, and not terrific within the system. I had to make my own way."

Weeds

Kohan was the creator, executive producer, showrunner, and head writer of the Showtime comedy-drama Weeds, starring Mary-Louise Parker. She sold the pilot to Showtime with five words: "Suburban. Widowed. Pot. Dealing. Mom." The show went on to run for eight seasons.

Orange Is the New Black

Kohan is the creator of Netflix's crime drama Orange Is the New Black, an adaptation that was inspired by Piper Kerman's memoir Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison about her experiences in a minimum-security women's prison.

Kohan runs her writer's room for Orange from Los Angeles, while the show films in New York.

Netflix, as a streaming service distribution model of TV and movie content, is unique in that it does not provide ratings information, so Kohan does not know exact ratings for Orange Is the New Black, which has been characterized as the most watched original series on Netflix, in a new distribution model where binge viewing is enabled by full seasons of shows being made available at once.

Other projects

Producing

Kohan has an overall deal with Lionsgate TV.

Hayworth Theatre

Kohan owns the historic Hayworth Theatre in Los Angeles. She plans to use the second floor as production offices.

Awards and nominations

Kohan has received nine Emmy Award nominations, winning as supervising producer of Tracey Takes On.... She shared a CableACE Award in 1996 for her work on that show. She received her first nomination for her show Weeds in 2009, for Outstanding Comedy Series. She was nominated for a Producers Guild of America Award in 2007, and two Writers Guild of America Awards.

In 2014, Kohan was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. In 2014, Orange Is the New Black was nominated for 12 Emmys.

Personal life

In 1997, Kohan married to author and freelance journalist Christopher Noxon, a convert to Judaism. They have three children, a son Charlie, a daughter Eliza, and youngest son Oscar. They live in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, California. Kohan and her family are Jewish; they belong to two synagogues and a chavurah group, and her children attend Jewish day school and summer camp. Every Friday, Kohan and her extended family have Shabbat dinner together.

Filmography

• 1994: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - writer (1 episode, "Stop Will! in the Name of Love")
• 1996: Boston Common - writer (1 episode, "Relationship of Fools")
• 1996-1999: Tracey Takes On... - writer (18 episodes); supervising producer/producer (47 episodes)
• 1997: Mad About You - producer, writer (1 episode, "The Recital"), written by credit (1 episode, "Astrology")
• 1998: Sex and the City - story (1 episode, "The Power of Female Sex")
• 2000: Gilmore Girls - producer (12 episodes), writer (1 episode, "Kiss and Tell")
• 2002: Will & Grace - writer (1 episode, "Fagel Attraction")
• 2002: My Wonderful Life (TV movie) - writer, executive producer
• 2004: The Stones - writer, executive producer
• 2005-2012: Weeds - creator, writer, executive producer (102 episodes)
• 2009: Ronna & Beverly (TV movie) - writer, executive producer
• 2010: Tough Trade (TV movie) - creator, writer, executive producer
• 2013-present: Orange Is the New Black - creator, writer, executive producer
• 2015: The Devil You Know - creator, writer, executive producer

[ Source: Wikipedia ]