Piller was born to a Jewish family"My Jewish Trek" Jewish Journal by Sheldon Teitelbaum. March 18, 2015 in Port Chester, New York. With parents who were both involved in writing; Gene Piller, his father, was a Hollywood screenwriter and his mother, Ruth Roberts, was a songwriter. He planned to be a scriptwriter from an early age, but a college lecturer discouraged him, and Piller started out in television working as an Emmy Award-winning journalist for CBS News in New York, WBTV in Charlotte, North Carolina, and WBBM-TV in Chicago, Illinois. However, he then moved to Los Angeles, California and the entertainment side of television in the late 1970s, working as a censor and then a programming executive for CBS. While at the network, he became director of dramas based on fact and program practices. He began writing scripts for television, and after selling a script to Cagney & Lacey and another to Simon & Simon, he was offered a staff writing position on Simon & Simon, where he stayed for three years, becoming a producer.
