Law and Order
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René Balcer
ReneBalcer
Date of birth
February 9, 1954
Place of birth
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
IMDb profile

René Balcer is an Emmy Award winning Canadian television writer and producer.

He was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and attended the Lower Canada College in Montreal. He earned his B.A. in Communication Studies from Concordia University in 1978.

He began his career as a journalist, covering the Yom Kippur War as a cameraman. He later worked as a reporter and editor for various Canadian publications, and made documentary films for the National Film Board of Canada. In 1980, he moved to Los Angeles, where he collaborated with the cult film director Monte Hellman on a number of film projects. He later worked for a variety of notable film producers including Francis Coppola, Steven Tisch and Mace Neufeld.

He is most noted for his writing and production work for Law & Order, and for creating its spin-off series Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Balcer has received three Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America for his writing for Law & Order, and a fourth for Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He also wrote the teleplay for the episode "Power Play" from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and has penned three made-for-television movies, one of which Out On The Edge (1990) won the American Psychological Association Award for best television program.

Balcer won an Emmy in 1997 as Executive Producer and showrunner of Law & Order. He has also won a Peabody Award, a Writers Guild Award for his television writing, two Silver Gavel Awards from the American Bar Association, a Career Award from the Reims International Television Festival, and a Maggie from Planned Parenthood for his teleplay "The Third Horseman". In 2004, he was awarded the Alumnus of the Year from Concordia University.

He was showrunner for Law & Order: Criminal Intent through the fifth season. In March of 2007, Balcer returned to Law & Order at the end of its seventeenth season as executive producer and head writer. He continued on as showrunner for the show's eighteenth season.

In 2013, he created the French police procedural drama series Jo, starring French actor Jean Reno in his first lead TV role. Along with his team, Jo attempts to solve murders taking place around some of the French capital's most famous locations. The series featured several Law & Order cast members, including Sam Waterston, Jill Hennessy, Olivia d'Abo, and Leslie Caron.

Balcer is a distant cousin of actress Alana De La Garza, sharing a common relative Juan Cortina, a Mexican folk hero known as the Rio Grande Robin Hood.

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