Samuel Garza Bernstein

A 2018 Writers Guild of America diversity honoree for the Writers Access Project, Samuel Garza Bernstein was born to a Mexican mother and Eastern European Jewish father. He grew up all over the world, living in Cairo, Honolulu, Austin, Phoenix, Albuquerque, New York, Los Angeles, and Ft. Collins, Colorado, among other places. He began his career as an actor, after moving to New York at age 17, and studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Art and NYU. After performing primarily in musical theater, be turned to writing in the 1990s. He has written stage plays and musicals, television shows, movies, and books, while working in Los Angeles, New York, and London. In 1994 he met husband Ronald Shore. They were married in a non-legally binding ceremony performed by a rabbi in 1996, then legally married in Canada in 2003, and then, legally married again in the United States in 2013. He is a CASA volunteer (Court Appointed Special Advocate) to foster children, headed a mentoring program called Screen Students for LAUSD high school writers from 2000-2010, and has worked with LGBTQ kids. Though credited as Samuel Bernstein for much of his career, to honor his late mother, he recently took her maiden name as his middle name.