Jeffrey Klarik

Klarik was raised in Connecticut in a Jewish family of Russian descent. His father was a comedy fan and took him to see performers including Schecky Greene, Jackie Mason and Woody Allen in comedy clubs. He graduated from the Carnegie Mellon University College of Fine Arts in 1969.

In the 1990s, Klarik and his partner David Crane both wrote for the HBO series Dream On. Crane went on to serve as the executive producer on Friends, and Klarik has described himself as an "unofficial writer" on that show.

After working on the CBS sitcom Ink, Klarik created the series Half & Half for UPN. Starring Rachel True and Essence Atkins as estranged half-sisters, the show's pilot premiered in 1999, and the series ran from 2002 to 2006. He served as a writer and co-producer on the NBC sitcom Mad About You starring Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt.

Klarik and Crane co-created The Class, which debuted in 2006. Though it was inspired by the popular series Lost and marketed as "the next Friends," the show was cancelled after just 19 episodes. The duo also collaborated on the BBC/Showtime sitcom Episodes, which aired from 2011 to 2017 and featured Friends star Matt LeBlanc as a fictional version of himself working on a series with Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig playing the showrunners. The series was nominated 4 times for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series at the Primetime Emmy Awards.

In 2017, Klarik and Crane were recognized for their contributions to television at the Nantucket Film Festival.

On New Year's Eve 2016, Klarik and Crane eloped after over 30 years of dating; the couple met through mutual friends. They told The Advocate how their experiences as gay men informed their work in a joint 2017 interview.