Wisner Washam is an
American soap opera writer, best known as the
Head Writer of
All My Children, from 1981 to 1992. He was groomed by
All My Children creator
Agnes Nixon to take the reins in the 1980s while she focused on other endeavors. From 1981 to 1983 and from 1988 to 1992, he shared head writing duties with Nixon.
A native of
North Carolina, he graduated from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After working in local television and radio in
Charlotte, he moved to
London where he studied acting at the
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. From there, he returned to New York where he worked for four seasons with the American
Shakespeare Festival in
Connecticut and on national tour.
Off-Broadway he was stage manager for
The Fantasticks, The White Devil, and
The House of Blue Leaves. He toured the USA as stage manager for Victor Borge, then worked with Mike Todd's
America Be Seated as well as
The Birds and
The Orestea in the
Ypsilanti Greek Festival. On
Broadway he was
understudy and
stage manager in
Neil Simon's Star-Spangled Girl,
Plaza Suite (he also assisted Mike Nichols in directing the national tour),
The Prisoner of Second Avenue,
There's A Girl In My Soup, and
The Riot Act.
After leaving
All My Children Washam assisted development of the European
soap opera which eventually aired as
Riviera. He created the concept for a new
Fox primetime soap, wrote briefly for
Guiding Light on CBS, and was involved in the development of a German
soap opera,
Take Your Chance. He has written both a
screenplay and a
novel entitled
The Cloning. He has won three
Daytime Emmy Awards.