Biografia
A distinguished storyteller in unscripted television, five-time Emmy Award winner Bill Pruitt launched his career at Robert Redford's Sundance Institute in Utah, where he was raised. He followed one of Sundance's founders to Columbia University School of the Arts, studying screenwriting and directing, earning multiple academic fellowships to help develop the producing curriculum, and graduating with honors. He wrote and directed acclaimed short films, including "Bolo," which was featured at the Sundance Film Festival. His feature screenplay, "Dry Cycle," was produced by Newmark Films.
After earning his MFA from Columbia, Pruitt traveled extensively, producing television content worldwide for networks such as CBS, NBC, MTV, Nat Geo, History, Animal Planet, Discovery, Vice, Magnolia, and Amazon Prime, filming on nearly every continent.
He created and developed "Weed Country," a six-part Discovery series that profiles medical marijuana growers and distributors in Northern California's Emerald Triangle, alongside the law enforcement agencies aiming to shut them down. Praised by critics as "groundbreaking" and "comparable to The Wire in its complexity," the series gained strong ratings and a devoted cult following in 2012.
Pruitt has received four Producers Guild of America nominations for Outstanding Non-Fiction Producer and won the Excellence Award from the Factual Entertainment Forum as Showrunner of Discovery's hit series "Deadliest Catch." The American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences nominated him six times for the Primetime Emmy Award, including twice in one year, and he won four consecutive Emmys as Supervising Producer of "The Amazing Race." His first digital series for Amazon Prime, "Eat the World with Emeril Lagasse," earned nominations for the James Beard Foundation Award, the Realscreen Award, five Daytime Emmys—including Best Directing and Best Editing—and won the Emmy for Best Culinary Series in 2017.
Pruitt splits his time between California, New York City, and Utah while raising his sons, filmmakers Jackson Stratton and William Wyler Pruitt.
