Biography

Thomas Maier is an author, journalist, and television producer. His book Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love is the basis for the Primetime Emmy-winning Showtime drama Masters of Sex.

Maier is also the author and a producer of "Mafia Spies", a six-part Paramount+ docuseries, based on his book of the same name. In 2022, he won the Columbia Journalism School Alumni Award for career achievement.

Maier is the author of When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys, a history of the two families. His other books include The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings, a multi-generational history of the Kennedy family and the impact of their Irish-Catholic background on their lives, and Dr. Spock: An American Life. The latter was named a "Notable Book of the Year" in 1998 by The New York Times and the subject of a BBC and A&E biography documentary.

His 1994 book, Newhouse: All the Glitter, Power and Glory of America's Richest Media Empire and the Secretive Man Behind It, won the Frank Luther Mott Award by the National Honor Society in journalism and mass communication for best media book of the year.

Maier joined Newsday in 1984 after working at the Chicago Sun-Times. He has won several awards in the field of journalism, including the national Society of Professional Journalists' top reporting prize on two occasions, the National Headliner Award, the Worth Bingham Prize, and the New York Deadline Club award. In 2002, he won the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' top prize for a series about immigrant workplace deaths. He won the John M. Patterson Prize from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for television documentary production and later received the John McCloy Journalism Fellowship to Europe. He lives on Long Island, New York.