Thomas Henle Baum (born 1940 in New York) is an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story writer. A graduate of Harvard, where he majored in math, Baum is best known for writing The Sender and Carny, both of which he wrote directly (as Thomas Baum) for the screen. He lives in Los Angeles with his producer wife, Carol Baum. He has two sons, Will Baum and Henry Baum, and three grandchildren. He is a descendant of the German anatomist Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle, who discovered and named the loop of Henle in the human kidneys.[1]