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At the time of the show's premiere, she was also the East Coast head of the Sundance Institute.
AMERICAN MASTERS JOHNNY CARSON SERIES
Before creating the series Lacy had been the senior programmer for Great Performances and one of the "architects" of American Playhouse, having written the original proposal for the latter. Susan Lacy, American Masters creator and executive producer, selected each subject, matched them to the specific filmmakers, and oversaw a first-season budget of $8 million. It aired on June 23, 1986, as one of two episodes not specifically commissioned for the show's first season. The first of the 15 first-season episodes was Private Conversations, a " cinema-verite documentary by Christian Blackwood done in that trickiest of cinematic forms: a film about a film, in this instance the television version of Death of a Salesman, directed by Volker Schlöndorff". History Īmerican Masters, a series "devoted to America's 'greatest native-born and adopted' artists", was originally scheduled to premiere in September 1985 for "logistical scheduling reasons" the premiere was delayed until summer 1986, though on October 16, 1985, an American Masters "special" called Aaron Copland: A Self-Portrait was aired. Groups or organizations featured include: Actors Studio, Algonquin Round Table, Group Theatre, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Women of Tin Pan Alley, Negro Ensemble Company, Juilliard School, the Beat Generation, the singer-songwriters of the 1970s, Sun Records, vaudeville, and Warner Bros. “The others,” said Jones, “worried that Johnny was still looking over their shoulder.American Masters is a PBS television series which produces biographies on enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists, filmmakers, and those who have left an indelible impression on the cultural landscape of the United States. The whole thing with Joan broke Jobhnny’s heart, it really did.” Of Carson’s four wives, only second wife Joanne agreed to be interviewed on camera. She called him to discuss it with him and he hung up on her. “She admits that she probably shouldn’t have let Johnny find out about it second-hand. “Joan really speaks about that for the first time with us,” Jones said. But surprisingly, one personality who did agree to be interviewed was Joan Rivers, whose joining Fox to host her own competing (short-lived) late-night talk show in the late 1980s spurred her complete estrangement from Carson. Only two celebs who were asked declined to participate: Woody Allen and Bill Cosby. Jones, joined on the TCA panel by regular Carson guest Angie Dickinson and comedian Drew Carey - who famously was invited to join Johnny on the couch following his first appearance on Tonight - found enthusiastic participation in the doc from Hollywood. … It was one reason why Johnny stipulated ownership of the show retroactively.” You only find them now in kinescopes that fans and collectors made. Consequently, the first 10 years of the show virtually do not exist. There is nothing more.’ And that was that.” As for why there is rarely a clip to be found from Tonight‘s early years with Carson, Jones noted that NBC routinely recorded over the previous night’s edition of the show because “video was so expensive back then. … I’ve done everything I want to do and said everything I want to say. I know you want me to participate in this, but I won’t be doing anything about my life because you know what? I don’t give a shit. He said to me, ‘Peter, you write a very good letter.
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“Then one day in 2002 I got a call and heard, ‘Johnny Carson’s on Line 2,’ and I thought it was a joke.
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The doc’s writer-producer-director Peter Jones confirmed that he had been pursuing Carson in letters from the time he famously retired from Tonight in 1992 to participate in a doc on his life, but he never received so much as a response. How come we never see any clips from Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show during that show’s first decade (1962-72)? Why was Carson essentially missing in action over the last 13 years of his life that ended on January 23, 2005? Some answers were provided this morning during a TCA panel promoting the PBS American Masters doc Johnny Carson: King of Late Night, scheduled to premiere May 14. Ray Richmond is contributing to Deadline’s coverage of TCA.