Someone whose legend included the name “Mr. Documentary”, after the jump:
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In 1999, TV Guide released its list of 45 people who made a difference in television history. And one of them was the producer David Wolper— who was present-at-the-creation of the medium and through the end of the 20th Century helped to define it …. and even better: enhanced it.
While he is most famous for either producing (or co-producing) his TV miniseries (The Thorn Birds, North & South and especially the groundbreaking Roots), plus some popular situation comedies (Chico and the Man, Welcome Back Kotter) and even some feature films (Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, LA Confidential) — my favorite part of his work are his documentaries (which led Time Magazine to dub him Mr. Documentary) — and that will be the focus of this profile.
Born in NYC in 1928, he attended high school with future Warner Brothers CEO Steve Ross and (after a failed attempt at Broadway) attended Drake University in Iowa before transferring to USC. There he became business manager of the campus humor magazine (whose editor was the future humorist Art Buchwald).
Attracted to films, he first tried (unsuccessfully) to distribute foreign films before making his mark (along with high school friend Jim Harris) in 1949 to acquire old films, shorts, cartoons and the like …. and sell them to the infant TV industry (when there were only fifty stations on the air). In 1951 he helped arrange the licensing/distribution for the soon-to-be-produced Superman TV series.
It was in 1957 when his career took off — now going into production. After obtaining footage from a defector Soviet spy (and assistance from the newly-formed NASA) he was able to produce a 1959 documentary entitled The Race for Space— narrated by someone he would go to later on, Mike Wallace — which none of the three networks would touch. Fortunately, due to his prior contacts with station owners, he was able to syndicate it: earning an Oscar nomination.
From there, he went on to produce documentaries such as the original 1962-64 CBS series Biography (with Mike Wallace), Theodore White’s The Making of the President 1960 (winning four Emmys), Four Days in November (on the JFK assassination) …. as well as a more substantial task.
After publishing the epic-length The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, an offer to make a feature film came into William L. Shirer from MGM: whose writers kept re-writing a screenplay before abandoning it, as Shirer noted in his 1990 memoirs:
After dispensing a million dollars … MGM sold the rights to David Wolper, who made a very good documentary film. It was an impossible task, really, to compress the history of Nazi Germany into a two-hour film. But Wolper did wonders. It is still shown in universities, and occasionally on television.
He often worked with outside partners on his projects, such as the Smithsonian, American Heritage magazine and the National Geographic Society — where he formed a partnership with the French explorer to produce The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau beginning in 1967. In his nine Oscar nominations, Wolper’s 1971 docu/sci-fi hybrid about the world of insects, The Hellstrom Chronicle, brought him his first win. In the 1970’s, he optioned the rights to Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique— yet could not line-up any sponsors. And he collaborated with others on the 1972 Olympics …. as he had a long-time interest in sports.
By the mid-1970s, ratings concerns made it harder to fund and produce TV documentaries, and so Wolper turned to fiction with TV movies and miniseries (as noted above) with great success. He also assisted in the 1976 Bicentennial Commission, produced the opening and closing ceremonies at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and the ceremonies to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty in New York.
He began to slow down in the 1990’s, transferring control of his firm to his son, and finished by producing a mini-series for CNN entitled Celebrate the Century— a 20th Century retrospective.
His legacy also includes (among many honors) a second Oscar (the Hersholt Humanitarian award in 1984) in addition to 2 Peabodys, the aforementioned 4 Emmys and 3 Golden Globes. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1988, received two NAACP Image Awards (for Roots and the 1984 Olympics work), and a 1986 People for the American Way Spirit of Liberty award.
In 2003, he released his recollections in the book Producer: A Memoir. David Wolper died in August, 2010 at the age of eighty-two — appropriately enough (according to his wife) while watching television. Perhaps the best tribute came from Brandon Stoddard, the former ABC Entertainment president who oversaw the development of projects such as Roots and The Thorn Birds.
“He had this belief that people should be entertained, but he also thought they should be enlightened as well. I wish every producer were David Wolper. TV would be a better place.”
Let’s close with a song that the (previously apolitical in public) saxophonist John Coltrane recorded this week in 1963 — just two months after the horrific Birmingham church bombing (for which Doug Jones was able to convict two of the bombers in 2001-2002) — and which Coltrane’s quartet played a month later on this TV show hosted by Ralph Gleason (who co-founded Rolling Stone in 1967).
Now, on to Top Comments:
From rik:
In the front-page story seeking reader names for the bizarre press conference led by The Rudy with his cosmetics running— today’s top comment came from the likes of Jacques Fromage (with inspiration coming from Roger Waters).
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the diary by Aldous J Pennyfarthing about the pushback received by Gym Jordan about his retort on social gatherings— I like the substitute language that is used by Dretutz (with an eye towards the children).
TOP PHOTOSNovember 18th, 2020 Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. (NOTE: Any missing images in the Quilt were removed because (a) they were from an unapproved source that somehow snuck through in the comments, or (b) it was an image from the DailyKos Image Library which didn't have permissions set to allow others to use it.) |
And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
11) I want to hear this from a real chorus. by jqjacobs +13615) Cruz is a sad, sorry piece of work. by luckylizard +11020) Another smile for this by Denise Oliver Velez +10026) I agree, it seems like a no-brainer. by RenMin +9130) The Federal Reserve vote by Denise Oliver Velez +87