Award tale couldn’t be written better

Alicia Robinson

TV viewers’ fascination with life in Orange County lives on.

One of Costa Mesa’s funnier native sons, Mitchell Hurwitz, won an

Emmy Sunday for his work on the Fox satire “Arrested Development,”

about life growing up in Orange County.

Hurwitz grew up in Costa Mesa’s Mesa Verde neighborhood and

graduated from Estancia High School in 1981. Now he’s made good in

Hollywood by making fun of a prosperous and dysfunctional -- and

fictional -- Orange County family.

The show won five Emmy awards Sunday, one of which went to Hurwitz

for his writing. Other Emmys were for best comedy series and best

directing in a comedy series. Hurwitz directs a majority of the

shows, said his mother, Judy Gertner. Hurwitz called her from Los

Angeles after his win Sunday night.

“He was totally surprised,” she said. “I think he was in shock. He

knew that the show had gotten seven nominations, but I don’t think

you ever expect to win.”

“Arrested Development” is the story of the Bluth family, whose

patriarch, George, has been jailed for cooking the books at the

family business. His widower son, Michael, tries to hold the rest of

the family together, while raising his own teenage son.

Before his present success, Hurwitz studied at Georgetown

University and then worked as a bellhop while writing scripts,

Gertner said. He started his television career writing for “The

Golden Girls” in 1985, and he’s worked on Ellen Degeneres’ “The Ellen

Show,” the short-lived “John Larroquette Show” and other comedies.

He’s been hilarious since high school, and it’s no surprise to

those who know him that he’s earned critical acclaim, said Barbara

Van Holt, who was Hurwitz’s drama teacher at Estancia High School.

“From his freshman year, you could see how funny he was going to

be,” Van Holt said. “It did not take a genius to figure out that he

was going to be amazing.”

A multi-faceted student, Hurwitz earned good grades, played water

polo and served in student government, as well acting and writing a

sketch comedy show for Estancia’s drama department, a tradition other

student writers have followed, Van Holt said.

That show, called “Wet Paint,” spoofed disaster films of the late

1970s with a sketch about the panic that ensues from a stopped

escalator, and it included a segment called “Gilligan’s Hot Tub.”

“It set a precedent,” Van Holt said. “I’d give anything to find my

videotape of that.”

Gertner said her whole family is funny, but Hurwitz has always

been especially creative. She watches “Arrested Development” every

week, and she’ll even watch episodes more than once, because the

humor is fast and sophisticated, and she doesn’t want to miss

anything.

“It is about a very dysfunctional family, but I’m sure it’s not

about any family in Orange County,” she said.

While the show he created is set in Orange County, Hurwitz now

lives in Pacific Palisades with his wife, actress Mary Jo Keenen, and

their two daughters. But much of the rest of the family is still

here. Gertner still lives in Mesa Verde, Hurwitz’s father lives in

Corona del Mar, and his brother Michael Hurwitz is a surgeon at Hoag

Hospital.

While Gertner is glad her son was recognized for his work, she

said she would have been happy without the golden statuettes.

“I’ve always been proud of him, no matter what he did,” she said.

“Even if he hadn’t won an Emmy, I’d be proud of him.”

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

alicia.robinson@latimes.com.