Toby Ziegler

Tobias Zachary "Toby" Ziegler is a fictional character in the television serial drama The West Wing, played by Richard Schiff. The role earned Schiff the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2000. For most of the series' duration he is White House Communications Director. 2Creation and development According to series creator Aaron Sorkin, Schiff was cast in the role of Toby Ziegler over many other actors who auditioned, including Eugene Levy. Schiff created a backstory for the character as a widower and wore his own wedding ring, something Sorkin and fellow executive producer Thomas Schlamme, who were planning for the character to be divorced, did not notice until the show's eighth episode. "I had always imagined that his first wife had died, which accounts for his sadness, and why someone would devote himself to public service and be so singular about it", Schiff said. "But then, Aaron and Tommy threw that right out the window." 2Character biography Tobias Zachary Ziegler was born on December 23, 1954. He is from a working-class background and grew up in Brighton Beach, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, in a Yiddish-speaking family. His father, Jules "Julie" Ziegler was an immigrant who, according to one episode, "needed the GI Bill," implying that he fought in either the Second World War or the Korean War. He made women's raincoats for a living; however, before this he was a member of Murder, In