David Wai-Sheung Lee

A TV writer-producer boasting a consistent involvement with long-running sitcoms, David Lee got his start penning episodes for the cultural milestone "The Jeffersons." By the mid-1980s, Lee and "Jeffersons" co-scribe Peter Casey formed a successful partnership that led to a joint gig on "Cheers," their second consecutive landmark series together and the one on which they met the third member of their alliance, fellow writer David Angell. Although Lee and his cohorts were instrumental in developing an entire ensemble of bartenders and patrons native to "Cheers"'s Chicago pub of the title, one character in particular, Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer), inspired the trio to extend his fictional life well beyond the show's many seasons. In 1993, Lee, Casey, and Angell co-created "Frasier," a spin-off sitcom in which the charmingly fuddy-duddy psychologist found himself transplanted back to his hometown of Seattle. While the show's erudite persnicketiness connected with audiences for 11 seasons, Lee and his partners demonstrated a capacity for a different kind of appeal with their semi-synchronous creation, "Wings." The airport-set sitcom never quite attained the critical acclaim of "Frasier" but is often remembered (and ribbed) in pop-culture consciousness as an airy pleasure. In addition to writing and producing, Lee has stepped into the director's chair on several occasions, helming episodes of "Wings," "Frasier," and "Everybody Loves Raymond."