David Handelman, Writer on Four Aaron Sorkin TV Series, Dies at 63

David Handelman, a print journalist turned TV writer who worked on the Aaron Sorkin series Sports Night , The West Wing , Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and The Newsroom , has died. He was 63.

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Handelman died Aug. 15 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York from complications of Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, a rare blood cancer, producer David Van Taylor told The Hollywood Reporter .

Handelman also wrote for the 2006 CBS series Love Monkey ; for season six (2008-09) of The CW’s One Tree Hill ; for season two (2013-14) of ABC’s Nashville ; and for season three (2015) of DirecTV’s Rogue .

Most recently, he was a staff producer and writer for almost a decade on CNN’s Smerconish , which paid tribute to him on the air in the days after his death.

Before television, Handelman was a staff writer at Rolling Stone , covering everyone from Beastie Boys and Talking Heads to Sam Kinison, folk artist Howard Finster and the AIDS activists ACT UP. He also edited issues devoted to comedy.

He then worked as arts editor for Vogue and wrote for publications including The New York Times , New York magazine, GQ , Details , Premiere and Spy .

Born in Scarsdale, New York, on April 23, 1961, Handelman broke into TV by writing a spec script for HBO’s The Larry Sanders Show with Kids in the Hall member Mark McKinney. (Handleman had penned a story about the Canadian TV show for Rolling Stone in 1988.)

Sorkin read that and hired them to write a freelance script for ABC’s Sports Night , which became the 1999 season one episode “The Sword of Orion.”

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The following year, Handelman turned a real-life disastrous experience interviewing Michael Jordan into the season two installment “The Sweet Smell of Air.”

In 2002, Handelman joined the staff of The West Wing for season four — Sorkin’s final year — on the NBC drama, then worked on NBC’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip in 2006-07 and HBO’s The Newsroom in 2012. His experiences as a journalist informed many Sorkin plotlines and details.

He also wrote for the syndicated The Jane Pauley Show , ABC’s Good Morning America and CNN’s In the Arena , hosted by Eliot Spitzer.

(Many of Handelman’s behind-the-scenes stories about his career — including one where he got his mother on the phone with Bruce Springsteen — can be found here .)

In recent years, he became a leader in the online community that formed around the band Wilco during the COVID shutdown. Last year, he served as a picket captain during the WGA strike.

Handelman’s life was celebrated Saturday on New York’s Upper West Side during a service that was attended by more than 400 people, including many industry professionals. One eulogy was delivered by McKinney.

Survivors include his wife, Syd Sidner; his daughters, Helen and Nancy; and his brothers, Dan and Matt.

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