Greg Hernandez · CC BY 2.0

Bruce Vilanch spent decades as one of Hollywood's most in-demand comedy writers without being famous for writing — he was better known to audiences as a fixture on the celebrity panel of Hollywood Squares, a show for which he was, behind the scenes, the head writer. He wrote for the Oscars for nearly twenty-five years, ten as a co-writer and fourteen more as head writer, and has been a regular writer for the Tonys, Grammys and Emmys, winning two Emmy Awards of his own.