Birthday profile

Lowell Ganz

Lowell Ganz, American screenwriter and producer

Born
August 31, 1948
Age in 2026
78
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1948

About Lowell Ganz

Lowell Ganz (born August 31, 1948) is an American writer and producer. He is the long-time writing partner of Babaloo Mandel and has written for television, film, and theatre. Ganz grew up in a Jewish family in Queens, New York, attending Martin Van Buren High School in Queens Village. He dropped out of college and moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue a career writing for sitcoms, starting with The Odd Couple. From there, he moved on to writing for the TV series Happy Days and created two of its spin-off series, Laverne & Shirley and Joanie Loves Chachi. In 1982, Ganz and Mandel teamed up with Happy Days actors Ron Howard and Henry Winkler to make their first film, the low-budget comedy Night Shift, which was also actor Michael Keaton's first film; Howard signed on because he wanted to start directing while Winkler wanted to move away from his image as the Fonz. Ganz's second film outing, Splash, made stars of Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah and earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Ganz and Mandel went on to write several other films, four more of which were also directed by Howard, and one of which had Penny Marshall, who starred in Laverne and Shirley, as director. Four of their films have featured Billy Crystal, three have featured Michael Keaton, two have featured Tom Hanks, and two are about baseball. Ganz and Mandel are also widely used as Hollywood script doctors, known for their reliability and fast turnaround time. Ganz lives in Los Angeles with his wife of more than 45 years. They have three children.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Lowell Ganz was born

Lowell Ganz was born in 1948. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1948

  • #1 song"Twelfth Street Rag" – Pee Wee Hunt
  • Top movieHamlet
  • Top TV showTexaco Star Theater (Milton Berle)
  • Best-selling bookThe Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentCleveland Indians win the World Series
  • Top headlineState of Israel declared
  • Technology milestoneLong-playing vinyl record (LP) introduced
  • Defining fadTelevision sets in homes
  • Notable inventionVelcro
  • World population2.50 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHarry S. Truman
  • Sports championCleveland Indians (World Series)
  • Also wonBaltimore Bullets (BAA)
  • U.S. population146.6M

1948 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Lowell Ganz's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19482026
Gas$0.26$3.45/gal
Average home$8,300$435,000
Average income$5,000$67,500
Minimum wage$0.40$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.40$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population146.6M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.