Marc Cherry

The man behind Desperate Housewives is almost as controversial as his campy prime-time soap. A self-declared "somewhat conservative, gay Republican," Cherry began his career in the late '80s as Dixie Carter's real-life personal assistant on Designing Women before becoming a writer/producer on the last few seasons of The Golden Girls. Over the years he worked on a handful of series, including The Five Mrs. Buchanans, about four disparate wives married to a quartet of brothers, which starred DH's Harriet Sansom Harris and featured a character named Bree. By the '00s Cherry seemed washed up. Years had passed since his last project, and HBO, FOX, CBS and NBC all passed on Housewives. Finally, ABC took a chance on the show in 2004 and hit pay dirt. The next year Cherry was named by Time as one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2005.