EDITH ABIGAIL FULLER — “I THINK I CAN, I THINK I CAN.” DOB? AND DICK WOLF
Edith Abigail Fuller and Dick Wolf would seem to have very little in common.
A fresh-faced little girl and a jowly septuagenarian male, grandfatherly in appearance.
Edith Abigail Fuller of Tulsa is six. Dick Wolf who will be 71 on his next birthday is a native New Yorker.
Edith is the youngest person to ever qualify for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Wolf is best known as the creator and executive producer of the long-running (since 1990) Law & Order television franchise in addition to the more recent (since 2012) feather in his cap, the Chicago franchise comprised of Chicago Fire; Chicago P.D.; Chicago Med; and Chicago Justice on which Wolf works in concert with a triumvirate of other creators.
Wolf has won awards right and left, almost too many to count.
Young Edith? Well, let’s just say accolades aplenty are sure to be on the way.
Edith Fuller qualified for the spelling bee in March when she was five years old. In an effort to compete against kids more than twice her age, she embarked on a study regimen which included 20-minute sessions as frequently as five times daily.
At the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center near Washington, D.C. she will discover this week whether or not, and if so how much her preparations (and DNA) will pay off.
If her performance in the 2017 Scripps Green Country Regional Spelling Bee in Tulsa held in March is any indication — she out-spelled more than 50 competitors to win — her prospects for continued success are as bright as the brilliant sun in an azure sky.
Home-schooled, Edith has worked with her parents Annie and Justin using materials provided by Scripps. Spellings of course, definitions and word roots have been closely examined, but win or lose the kindergarten student who plays piano, sings in her church’s children’s choir and wants to be a zoology professor is already a history-making superstar.
An absolute lock is this: the other 289 in the field are well aware of it.
Dick Wolf, an Emmy Award Winner and the proud owner of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame began his television career as a staff writer on Hill Street Blues and from there moved on to Miami Vice where he was a writer and co-producer for the series’ third and fourth seasons.
Law & Order, his jewel, ran from 1990 to 2010, tying Gunsmoke as the longest-running drama in television history and ensuring its inclusion in the conversation regarding television’s most successful franchises. Further evidence of this claim can be found in the fact that the series has been nominated for the most consecutive Emmy Awards of any primetime drama (1992–1996, 1998–2002).
Chicago Fire opened inauspiciously with weak ratings numbers and minimal reviews in its first few weeks before becoming NBC’s #2 scripted drama series and thereby paving the way for the first spin-off, Chicago P.D. Success breeds success as Wolf and his executive producers Derek Haas, Michael W. Brandt and Matt Olmstead all know and for the moment, the threat of the flow and pooling of oversaturation (to wit: Med and Justice) has been stanched. Under Wolf, the ship is not likely to sink.
Edith Abigail Fuller must certainly aspire to scale the heights of greatness which Dick Wolf has navigated and attained in whatever her chosen pursuits. Her future — though unassured — is limitless. Wolf may not have yet past his prime or even reached his peak. He continues to produce, in every sense of the word.
The two are bound by God-given and cultivated genius; unwitting partners they are in that regard.
They offer us hope and the prospect of excitement. They bring us joy. They’re fun to watch.
They don’t know each other and they most probably do not know of each other. They represent opposite ends of the spectrum in many ways. They are spellbinding, Wolf for what he has created and continues to create and Edith Fuller for what she has the potential to create, what she may create.
In their own inimitable ways each one demands that you sit at the very edge of your seat in anticipation of what will come next.
And how great is that?
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in June 2017.]
