Mention the name
Stephanie Savage and you will be greeted with blank looks but if you drop names such as
The OC and
Gossip Girl you will get a different reaction.
Stephanie Savage is the lady behind these two fantastic programmes - forget
Josh Schwartz – this Canadian native is it. Stephanie wrote and produced
The OC and is currently working as writer and executive producer of
Gossip Girl. Her first gig in Hollywood was working for
Drew Barrymore’s production company,
Flower Films, and she went on to work on the script for
Never Been Kissed and
Charlie’s Angels. It was here where she met
Joseph McGinty Nichol aka McG who was directing the movie and the two of them became inseparable. Five years later
Stephanie and
McG decided it was time to move on and formed their own production company,
Wonderland Vision and Sound.
They hooked up with
Josh Schwartz and came up with the concept for a show that would showcase the lives of young people in Orange County.
McG, an OC native wanted to convey the contrasts between the Republican values, wealth and gated communities that is very Reagan-esque and, the epicenter of California skate-and-surf culture. During an interview with
The OC Insider,
Stephanie stated,
“You have these really cool bands like No Doubt, Social Distortion and Sublime coming from there and that was the kind of scene that McG grew up in, so we thought that was really interesting. I mean if you go down there, it's like a mixture of country clubs, rock clubs, and there's dads golfing with their sons and kids partying in the streets, and it just seemed like a really great world to explore." That show became known as
The OC and went on to become one of the most popular teen shows on TV and set the look for reality shows such as
Laguna Beach and
The Hills.
The OC ended in 2007 and by then
Stephanie had already left Wonderland to concentrate on writing but she was not idle for long because that very same year she was hard at work with
Schwartz on
Gossip Girl.
Alloy Entertainment had approached
Schwartz about turning the popular book series by
Cecily von Ziegesar into a show. After reading the books his first response was that he would do it only if
Stephanie came onboard,
“She's really tapped into young women and what's exciting for them. I knew the material was a little female-weighted for someone as ignorant of the female species as myself, and Stephanie would have great insight into it," explained
Schwartz.
Gossip Girl is a glossy show about the lives of teen socialites who descend on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The huge success of the books along with the huge fan base that
Schwartz had built up over the years meant that expectations for the new show were very high. However, the show fulfilled its potential and has been dubbed by
New Yorker magazine as the greatest teen drama of all time. Whilst
Stephanie shared production creds with
Schwartz,
Gossip Girl is all hers and it is she who steers the show.
Stephanie describes her role in
Gossip Girl as making a magazine show every week and setting the trend.
The 38 year old is still based in LA and writes full time and having secured her name in teen TV,
Stephanie has now turned her attentions to the big screen. She is working on a film called
The Au Pairs, which is based on a book by
Melissa de Cruz. If it is anything like
Gossip Girl, I am sure it will be a corker.
Picture taken from LA Times and Seat 42F respectively.
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Hadley Freeman is the diminutive Deputy Fashion Editor of The Guardian whose witty observations have won her the hearts of young fashionistas all over the world. Every fashion desk has their bright spark - you know the person who holds the end up and brings in all the punters. With The Telegraph it is Hilary Alexander, The New York Times have Cathy Horyn, the International Herald Tribune with Suzy Menkes and the shiny towers at Farringdon, London have the New York born Freeman. In her spare time she contributes pieces to Vogue and also penned a book about the psychology of fashion. The Meaning of Sunglasses: A Guide to (Almost) All Things Fashionable has been described as "an A-Z fashion for women who love clothes but don't take the fashionista world too seriously." The book will be released in paperback this week and to celebrate this those lovely people at Penguin are giving away copies to five lucky readers. How do you get one? Just send me an email to ondolady@googlemail.com and we will send the book out to you. 
