WIT Red Carpet - 2010 Awardees :: Renee Taylor & Joe Bologna

Renee Taylor & Joe Bologna

Marlow Wyatt/The Girl Blue Project

The Gallery Theatre

The Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Project

Caprice Spencer Rothe

Theatre West

Joe Bologna’s theatrical career dated back to his days as an undergraduate at Brown University. After a tour of duty in the Marines, he began directing documentaries and commercials and writing special comedy material.
Renee Taylor has been acting since she was nineteen. An eventual member of The Actors’ Studio, she studied with some of the greatest acting coaches of the last century, most notably, eight years with Lee Strasberg.

Joe and Renee married in 1965. Together, they wrote the Broadway play, Lovers and Other Strangers. They then collaborated on the screen version, which earned them an Oscar nomination. Joe continued his directorial career by contributing short films, which he and Renee wrote, to the award winning PBS series, The American Dream Machine. In 1971, they co-wrote, and co-starred in for the first time, the film, Made For Each Other. They then received an Emmy Award for co-writing the television special, Acts Of Love And Other Comedies.

They co-wrote and co-starred in the television special, Paradise, for which they received a Writers Guild of America Award and which Joe directed. Renee and Joe created the television series, Calucci’s Department co-directing the pilot episode. Additionally, they co-wrote, co-directed and co-starred in the film It Had to Be You, based on another of their Broadway plays. They shared the same duties on the original 1995 feature film, Love Is All There Is, in which they cast Angelina Jolie in her first leading role.
As an actor, Joe has had leading roles in myriad films, including, My Favorite Year, Blame It On Rio, The Woman in Red, Big Daddy and The Boynton Beach Club. Renee has also appeared in numerous feature films: but she is most recognized for her role as Sylvia Fine, Fran Drescher’s mother on TV’s, The Nanny. During this past season, Renee guest-starred on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and, Joe guest-starred on CSI: Las Vegas.

Renee and Joe’s theatrical ventures in LA also have included Bermuda Avenue Triangle, which they co-wrote and co-starred in with Bea Arthur; and, An Evening with Golda Meir, in which Renee starred and Joe directed. Of late, they have been touring the country in their Broadway play, If you Ever Leave Me, I’m Going With You. Next, they will be co-starring in the new two-character play Sort Of A Love Story, co-authored by Joe and Richard Krevolins, which will have its premier performances, at the El Portal Theater in the North Hollywood Arts District, starting October 14. Among their many other efforts, Renee and Joe have produced one son, one grandson, many dogs and cats, and one very noisy bird.