Joseph Wapner
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Judge Joseph A. Wapner (born November 15, 1919 in Los Angeles, California) pioneered real-life courtroom-style television with The People's Court, which ran in syndication from 1981 to 1993 for 2,484 episodes.
Wapner became synonymous with televised small claims "court", pitting parties, without lawyers, against each other in a binding arbitration mediated by Wapner. The legacy of the show's high popularity are a myriad of similar syndicated shows and the cable channel Court TV.
After retiring from The People's Court, Wapner starred on cable channel Animal Planet's Judge Wapner's Animal Court, presiding over real cases involving or about animals.
Judge Wapner attended Hollywood High School and was actress Lana Turner's boy friend for a short while in high school. Wapner is a graduate of the University of Southern California (1941) and the USC Law School (1948), serving in WWII in between. Appointed by Governor Pat Brown to the Los Angeles Municipal Court in 1959, Wapner served 2 years before being elevated to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, where he served for 18 years before retiring. In 1981, he became the first (and most famous) judge on the long-running The People's Court.
- Author of A View from the Bench, (ISBN 0-451-82193-9)
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