Tom Sawyer

Although the name will usually bring to mind the title character from the Mark Twain novel "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (not to mention a popular hard rock anthem by Rush), Tom Sawyer is also the name of an Emmy Award-nominated television writer/producer. Getting his start in the late 1970s as a writer for single episodes of some of the era's top programs (culture-clash sitcom "Chico and the Man," comic-book fantasy "The New Adventures of Wonder Woman," medical drama "Quincy M.E.," etc.), it would be in the following decade that Sawyer would leave his mark in television. In 1985, he began a successful association with the hit crime/mystery series "Murder, She Wrote" starring Angela Lansbury as a mystery novelist who falls into crime solving, which he would be a part of until 1996, writing 24 episodes. However, after "Murder, She Wrote" wrapped up, Sawyer retired from show business, and hasn't had a writer or production credit since.