Gary Levine was on a mission when he joined Showtime in 2001. As his tenure there comes to an end next month, Levine can look in the mirror and say with no small measure of pride: Mission accomplished.
Levine came to Paramount Global-owned Showtime to help what was then a premium cable channel evolve its programming strategy from one rooted in a slate of original made-for-TV movies to a schedule of recurring weekly comedy and drama series. It was the logical move for the moment. It was the decision that helped Showtime finally emerge from the long shadow of HBO to become a force all its own.
From “Weeds” to “Yellowjackets,” Levine has been the steady hand guiding every original series that has rolled off the cabler’s production pipeline. Showrunners say he’s the rare executive who has the institutional knowledge and confidence to help them through the minefield of launching a series — and the even harder job of keeping it on the air.
“Gary was in the room when I pitched ‘The Chi’ eight years ago, and I hear he was a huge advocate for the series before I even walked in,” recalls Lena Waithe, creator-executive producer of the drama series that’s heading into its eighth season. “He not only believed in the show’s potential, but he’s always believed in me — not just as an artist, but as a person. He is the kind of exec we don’t see anymore.”
For Levine, it was the challenge of shaping new ideas and working with emerging multi-hyphenates such as Waithe that kept him engaged for so long.
“Showtime hired me to try and put them on the map in series. Slowly but surely, against a lot of odds, we were able to do it,” he says. “And the way we were able to do it was to do nothing except be ambitious.”
For most of his Showtime years, Levine served as executive VP of original series, working under four different entertainment chiefs: Jerry Offsay, Bob Greenblatt, David Nevins and most recently Chris McCarthy, who is also co-CEO of Paramount Global.
Levine’s résumé before Showtime included 10 years at ABC as well as time at Icebox.com, Warner Bros. TV and Columbia Pictures Television. Before that, the native New Yorker also spent 10 years as a senior leader at nonprofit theater companies, including Roundabout Theatre Company and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. He could have landed the top programming position at any number of Showtime competitors. But Levine felt that he shouldn’t mess with a good thing.
“Luckily, the people I worked for allowed me to keep my job incredibly pure,” Levine explains. “What I love doing is being in a room with writers and talking about story, talking about a script, talking about cuts and talking about concepts.”
In McCarthy’s view, Levine’s background in theater gave him enormously strong instincts for identifying talent.
“He helped bring all these subversive antiheroes and gave distinctive creative voices the chance to do their first series at Showtime,” McCarthy says. “Whether it was ‘Dexter’ or ‘Weeds’ or ‘Nurse Jackie’ or ‘Billions’ — these were complicated, brilliantly flawed characters that we fell in love with and rooted for.”
McCarthy calls Levine “an artists’ executive.”
Clyde Phillips, showrunner of “Dexter,” “Nurse Jackie” and the upcoming “Dexter: Resurrection” agrees. The two have worked together since Levine relocated from the East Coast to Hollywood in the mid-1980s to work for Columbia Pictures Television.
“His commitment to storytelling is foremost,” Phillips says. “He understands what it takes to tell a good story and to make a good show. He’s become rather famous for notes that are from the heart and from a great mind. It’s always about making the show better.”
Alex Gansa, showrunner and executive producer of “Homeland” with Howard Gordon, said Levine deserves credit for helping them steer that ship for eight seasons.
“Look at the shows he put on the air, look at the shows he shepherded, there is no question he elevated the form,” Gansa says. “He played a crucial role in every important decision for the entire run of the series. I can’t tell you how rare that is for an executive. The man is one of a kind.”
Gordon notes that Levine bought the first-ever pilot script (“Country Estates”) that he and Gansa sold as TV writers in 1990. Ten years later, Gordon would be a co-founder of Icebox.com.
Levine “not only has the critical capacity to identify a problem, but the creativity and confidence to offer a potential solution, and the rare ability to detach his ego from his ideas,” Gordon says. “Gary’s intellectual honesty and critical capacity to challenge an idea or a scene or a character inevitably elevated everything we did on ‘Homeland.’ “
Levine’s exit comes after Showtime was folded in 2023 into the Paramount+ streaming banner. For Levine, that was a signal that the time had come for him to start a new chapter.
“Unfortunately, Chris and the corporation had to make a Sophie’s choice, and they chose Paramount+. It was a smart business move, but a little painful for the guy who helped build Showtime,” Levine says. “Through all of this, Chris has been unbelievably supportive and fair and respectful to me.”
Levine is retiring from the executive ranks. But he expects to stay active working with friends and acquaintances in an advisory capacity. The most fulfilling part of his job has been nurturing young writers and helping screenwriters make the leap into episodic TV.
“I’m proud of the writers we moved into television,” Levine says, citing such prominent scribes as Ilene Chaiken (“The L Word”), Michael Hurst (“The Tudors,”), John Logan (“Penny Dreadful”) and the “Billions” duo of Brian Koppelman and David Levien.
Looking back at his career, Levine credits an industry trailblazer for giving him a shot as he sought to make what could have been a difficult transition from theater to TV. Barbara Corday, the former Columbia Pictures Television president, opened the door wide for him. “She said, ‘I don’t know what you can do but I’d like to see. Let’s give each other a year,’ ” Levine recalls. “That was 1985. She set me up for success.”
After 40 years in TV, Levine offers a key piece of advice to the rising generation of programming and production executives.
“If you create an environment that feels creatively exciting and freeing, in a place that’s stable, with mature execs who are not there to hear the sound of their own voice but really want to help be a North Star for the writers — that takes on its own positive momentum,” he says.
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Vintage Variety: From the July 22, 1985, edition of Daily Variety