Billy Van Zandt

Billy Van Zandt and his writing partner, the late Jane Milmore, are two of the most often produced playwrights in the world. Together for 46 years, they wrote and starred in 23 plays together, including the international hit comedy You’ve Got Hate Mail; off-Broadway’s tribute to slapstick comedy Silent Laughter; cult favorite Drop Dead; the Marx Bros. inspired musical A Night at the Nutcracker and the summer stock perennial Love, Sex, and the I.R.S. Billy’s solo play The Property Known as Garland, starring Adrienne Barbeau, broke box office records at off-Broadway’s Actors’ Playhouse. The plays have been produced in thousands of theatres worldwide, including two productions directed by Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis (“Billy and Jane are funny, outrageous, off-the-chart writers/performers”) and one by film legend Burt Reynolds.

For television, these award-winning writers have produced over 300 hours of television comedy, including Newhart; Martin, which won them a People’s Choice Award; The Hughleys, which won them a Prism Award; Suddenly Susan for Brooke Shields; Daddy Dearest for Don Rickles and Richard Lewis; Anything But Love for Jamie Lee Curtis and Richard Lewis; The Wayans Bros. and I Love Lucy: The Very First Show, which earned them an Emmy nomination.

As an actor, Billy made his film debut in Jaws 2 and has co-starred with Lucille Ball, Tim Hutton, Sean Penn, Tom Cruise, Giancarlo Esposito, Evan Handler, Karl Malden, Mrs. Maisel, That Girl Lay Lay, a shark named Bruce and the crew of the USS Enterprise.

Billy lives in Los Angeles when he’s not touring the world in the last Van Zandt/Milmore musical, The Boomer Boys Musical. His hilarious book Get in the Car, Jane (Adventures in the Television Wasteland) is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. His new book about their plays, Because It’s Funny!, is on sale now. Visit him at vanzandtmilmore.com.