His grandmother was B-movie actress Peggy Knudsen, and his great-grandparents were the real-life married couple of the Fibber McGee and Molly program, Jim and Marian Jordan, stars of radio and television.

Orloff studied screenwriting at the University of California, Los Angeles Film School, and on graduation went to work in the advertising business.

When she continually brought home what he felt were "awful" screenplays, he decided to write his own, a 16th-century English melodrama based on the Shakespeare authorship question, which ended up being sent to Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.

They were not interested in producing his project, but Hanks asked Orloff, a keen "World War II buff", to write for the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.

[7] Orloff's script based on the Shakespeare authorship question was made into a film, Anonymous, released in 2011, and starring Rhys Ifans and Vanessa Redgrave to a controversial reception.