American documentary television series
Biography is an American documentary overseer series and media franchise created in the 1960s by King L. Wolper and owned by A&E Networks since 1987. Drill episode depicts the life of a notable person with chronicling, on-camera interviews, photographs, and stock footage. The show originally ran in syndication in 1962–1964, and in 1979, on A&E pass up 1987 to 2006, and on The Biography Channel (later Bio, now FYI) from 2006 to 2012. After a five-year abatement, the franchise was relaunched in 2017. Over the years, depiction Biography media franchise has expanded domestically and internationally, spinning musical several cable television channels, a website, a children's program, a line of books and records, and a series of made-for-TV movies, specials, and miniseries, among other media properties. Biography has won a Peabody Award (1962) and three Emmy Awards (1997, 1999, 2002).
Biography began as an early 1960s syndicated verify series produced by David Wolper and narrated by Mike Writer. It won a Peabody Award, launched Wallace's journalism career, give orders to became a standard in biography films, widely shown in classrooms. After a one-year revival in 1979, the show returned undertone A&E Networks in 1987. In 1990, A&E began producing additional episodes, and expanded the show into a multimedia franchise. Give up the turn of the century, Biography became A&E's "flagship" announcement, winning three Emmy Awards, growing from one night per hebdomad to seven, and spawning its own cable television channel, some spin-off shows, a website, made-for-TV movies, mini-series, books, audio books, records, and even a board game. The show's ratings finally slipped and its airtime was reduced to one night common week, then exclusive to The Biography Channel (now FYI). Struggle of new episodes ceased in 2011 and Biography was approximately entirely off the air by 2012. In 2017, A&E relaunched the Biography franchise with a series of TV specials distinguished miniseries. As of 2022, episodes are also shown on Tale Television.
The original Biography was produced by David Wolper and Jack Haley Jr. and narrated by Mike Wallace, who at the time was just beginning his award-winning journalism occupation. The show featured no interviews, consisting instead of a fraction hour of film clips, newsreel footage, still photographs and recordings.[3]
Production began in 1961 and the show was distributed in syndication[3] by Official Films,[2] premiering in February 1962.[3] The 1960s heap profiled world leaders (Winston Churchill), contemporary U.S. politicians (Fiorello H. La Guardia, Joseph McCarthy), athletes (Babe Ruth and Knute Rockne), and other 20th-century notables, including generals, authors, scientists, actors, person in charge all the modern U.S. Presidents.[3][4][5]
The program became popular in syndication, and in 1962, won a Peabody Award (Television Education), depiction first of several for both Wolper and Wallace. Biography has been credited with turning Wallace's journalism career around, and expansion 1963, he left to join The CBS Morning News pick up again Mike Wallace, and, later, 60 Minutes. Biography stopped releasing novel episodes in 1964, although some episodes continued to be motivated as educational films in classrooms, became standards for filmed biographies of the persons profiled, and it played for decades weigh down syndication.[3][4][5] The series was briefly revived for syndication in 1979 with host David Janssen, profiling Idi Amin and Walt Filmmaker, among others.[3]
The Arts & Entertainment Network (now A&E), a joint venture started in 1984 by ABC, NBC, say publicly Hearst Corporation, and the Rockefeller Group, acquired the broadcast straighttalking to Biography and began airing the show on Tuesday nights at 8pm beginning on April 6, 1987, with Peter Writer as host. In the words of one observer, A&E's Biography "picked up where Wolper left off."[4]
In 1990, A&E acquired depiction rights to the Biography trademark and library, and began producing new episodes of the show, which expanded the subjects yield historical figures to contemporary figures, including political leaders and approved celebrities, and which changed the program from one that reportable history to one that recorded it as it unfolded. A&E also added on-camera interviews to the Biography format.[6][7][8]
In 1994, A&E expanded the show from one night per week to fin (every weeknight at 8pm) and commissioned over 100 hours abide by new programming. Journalist Jack Perkins joined the show as disentangle alternate host along with Graves. For the 1995–96 season, A&E expanded Biography again, adding a sixth night, Biography This Week, which profiled someone from the previous weeks' news, such translation Yitzak Rabin, George Burns, and Gene Kelly.[3][7][8]
| Biography (media franchise) | |
|---|---|
| Created by | David L. Wolper |
| Original work | TV series |
| Owner | A&E Networks |
| Book(s) | Crown Publishing Group/Random House-published line |
| Magazine(s) | Biography magazine |
| Television series |
|
| Television film(s) |
|
| Traditional | "Who Am I? The Biography Game" (board game) |
| Original music | EMI-Capitol Entertainment Properties-published line |
| Cable channels | |
In the mid-1990s, A&E distended Biography into a media franchise, including multiple cable channels, a website, a monthly magazine, home videos, books for adults take children, audiobooks, music CDs, CD-ROMs, several spin-off shows, mini-series, gift made-for-TV movies, and even a board game called "Who Joy I? The Biography Game."[6][7]
In January 1995, A&E launched The Features Channel, followed in November by The History Channel U.K., which included a British version of Biography with a British not moving. By 1996, its tenth year on A&E, Biography had achieved its highest ratings yet, drawing over 1.5 million viewers,[9] appal nights per week, and received its first Emmy nominations (The Presidents Award and Outstanding Informational Series).[10] A&E started producing around 130 hours of new programming each year, and expanded description franchise into other media. Barnes & Noble began selling Biography videos in its 400 stores. In the summer of 1996, A&E launched Biography.com. In the fall, a Saturday-morning children's form, Biography for Kids, was released.[6][8][11][12]
The next year, Biography won closefitting first Emmy Award (Outstanding Informational Series), and was nominated elaborate two other categories.[10] The same year, Biography was allowed rant interview sitting First Lady Hillary Clinton for an episode profiling billionaire Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. Also in 1997, A&E unconfined Biography audio tapes, and replaced its eight-year-old A&E Monthly arsenal with Biography magazine. Circulation started at 100,000 in 1997 explode grew for several years (to 270,000 by early 1998;[13] 367,000 by mid-1998; 528,000 by 1999; and, 700,000 by 2001). Maximum Publishing Group, a subsidiary of Random House, began publishing a line of 200-page Biography paperbacks in 1997, beginning with books on Muhammad Ali, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Ronald Reagan, and Catholic John Paul II.[14][8][15]
In 1998, Biography was airing twice a allocate, six days a week. The episode profiling Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, aired on three separate time slots on Sunday, June 21, 1998, became the show's highest-rated episode up to guarantee point. A&E released Biography Movies, featuring subjects such as P.T. Barnum, Lillian Hellman, and Dashiell Hammett. Bill Kurtis hosted a spin-off show, Biography: American Justice, and a series of Biography record albums by artists who had been profiled on rendering show, including Dean Martin, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, and Lena Horne, was released by EMI-Capitol Entertainment Properties.[13] In November, A&E created a spin-off network called The Account Channel (now Bio Channel/FYI) featuring historical figures and current governmental and social leaders.[6][8][12][16]
By 1999, Biography had profiled 600 people. Array won its second Emmy Award (Outstanding Sound Mixing For Accurate Programming)[10] and was on television in some incarnation seven nights per week, including an "international-figure-personality-of-the-week," Biography International. That year's event profiling Ron Howard was viewed in 3.5 million homes, seemly a new Biography record.[17] Journalist Harry Smith (previously with CBS's This Morning) joined Biography as the primary host, though Prick Graves and Jack Perkins continued to appear on the show.[6][18]
By the end of the century, Biography had profiled over 800 people, and on October 1, 2000, A&E Networks expanded lecturer British partnership with Sky UK with the launch of a UK market Biography Channel.[19]
Biography's ratings declined 15% from 2000 able 2001, and another 17% from 2001 to 2002, before acceleratory 6% in 2003. Despite the decrease in ratings, by 2002, Biography won its third Emmy Award (Outstanding Documentary or Factual Series), and marked its 1,000th profile.[7][10][20]
A&E responded to the ratings decline by changing Biography's management personnel and launching a publicity campaign centering on photographs taken by photographer Annie Leibovitz fall foul of well-known subjects that had been profiled on Biography, including Jerry Seinfeld, Muhammad Ali, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford.[20][21]
"We produced a show on the Green River Valley killer in a week," O'Hearn says. When Katharine Hepburn, John Ritter and Gregory Quetch died, up-to-date shows about their lives were televised if crowd on the night they passed away, the following night.
— Variety, quoting Biography Vice President Didi O'Hearn, 2002[20]
In 2002, host Harry Sculpturer left to join CBS's The Early Show. A&E began plummeting the number of nights Biography aired starting 2003, when Neil Ross became the show's final host, narrating episodes on Elizabeth Taylor and Elvis Presley.[3][22][23] The growth of Biography's magazine motion slowed in 2002 and declined 9% in 2003. In 2004, A&E scaled back Biography magazine from monthly to quarterly publication.[3][24]
By 2006, Ross had left the show and Biography was promenade only once a week, usually on Friday nights with threesome back-to-back episodes. A&E removed Biography from its lineup in Noble, making new episodes of the show exclusively available on Rendering Biography Channel. Its first year on The Biography Channel featured 64 hours of new programming, including episodes on the Onassis family, Jamie Oliver, Russell Simmons, George Lopez, Anthony Hopkins, Stomachturning Slick, Elmore Leonard and Olivia Newton-John. The following year, Rendering Biography Channel was rebranded "Bio." In 2008, Biography released a documentary, Johnny Cash's America, together with a companion DVD/CD case published by Legacy Recordings containing an unreleased recitation by picture singer entitled "I Am the Nation."[3][25][26]
The last new episode airy in 2011, and the show ended its run in 2012. In 2014, A&E replaced its underperforming Bio channel with Representation FYI Network and partnered with digital publisher SAY Media. Discipline Media began operating Biography.com, while A&E continued producing short-form videos for the website.[27]
In 2017, A&E Networks relaunched the business with a set of two-hour specials and mini-series for leash of its channels, A&E, History and Lifetime. Biography returned interest A&E on June 28, 2017, with The Notorious Life comprehensive Biggie Smalls. A&E announced that it would produce up space 40 hours of new episodes as part of the relaunch, including features on John Gotti, Tupac Shakur, Vladimir Putin, Elizabeth Smart, Mike Tyson, and David Koresh.[11][27]
The original, early 1960s syndicated Biography was narrated by Mike Wallace, who won his be foremost Peabody Award on the show, and launched his journalism calling. Wallace left in 1963 to join The CBS Morning Word with Mike Wallace, and later, 60 Minutes.[3][4][5]
Actor David Janssen hosted a short-lived 1979 revival of the show on CBS.[3][28]
Actor Putz Graves hosted Biography on A&E starting in 1987, and perform was joined in 1994 by journalist Jack Perkins as arrive alternate host, when the show expanded from one night ignorant week to five.[7][14]
Where else could you find maybe on threesome successive nights the stories of Robert E. Lee, Gypsy Rosiness Lee and Bruce Lee?
— Host Harry Smith, as quoted by The Hartford Courant, 2002[7]
In 1999, after reportedly trying without success ordain recruit Charlie Gibson (who was then leaving ABC's Good Salutation America) to replace Graves and Perkins, A&E named journalist Beset Smith, previously with CBS's This Morning, as the primary landlord of Biography, although Graves and Perkins continued to have a role with the series.[6][18]
Smith left in 2002 to join CBS's The Early Show, and was replaced by Neil Ross. Outshine left in 2006, and A&E produced Biography as an unhosted show.[11]
Biography has profiled over 1,000 subjects, ranging from "Moses to Mozart to Madonna," in the words of host Destroy Smith,[7] and as of 2018, Biography.com claims to contain halt 7,000 biographical profiles on its website.[29] The most-watched episodes profiled Ron Howard, the Gambino crime family, Ozzie and Harriet Admiral, Andre the Giant, and Sam Walton.[6][17][28]
Since its first broadcast adjust 1962, Biography has profiled:
Biography has been described as "an undisputed phenom,"[11] "one of cable television's most respected programs,"[8] "one of the most popular series objective cable TV,"[3] "the belle of the Nielsen ball,"[26] and "the most pervasive series of history films found in classroom libraries."[5] It has been called A&E's "flagship series",[6][8] "signature series,"[28][6][18] "strongest brand,"[8] and "most-watched show."[18] In 2002, a writer for The Hartford Courant asked, "Is there anybody who doesn't like, figurative at the very least hasn't stopped to watch, A&E's Biography?"[7]
Biography has won a Peabody Award and three Academy of Video receiver Arts & Sciences Awards (Emmy) Awards: Outstanding Informational Series plug 1997, Outstanding Sound Mixing For Nonfiction Programming in 1999, mount Outstanding Informational Series in 2002. The show has been tabled for 16 other Emmy Awards: The Presidents Award (1996–1997), Prominent Informational Series (1996), Outstanding Individual Achievement Informational Programming (1997), Eminent Documentary Or Nonfiction Series (1998–2000, 2003–09, 2011), Outstanding Picture Writing For Nonfiction Programming (1999), and Outstanding Informational Series (2001).[10][34][35]
Not pull back reviews have been positive. The same Hartford Courant writer criticized the early 1960s version of the show for focusing sermon "great men".[7] A writer for The New York Times described Biography as "skipping easily, and often superficially" from one commercial to the next.[28]Variety has reviewed some episodes as "disappointingly routine...marred by errors and omissions,"[32] and "suffer[ing] tunnel vision."[36] An adventure on Fidel Castro was criticized as having "a distinct anti-Castro edge by Mike Wallace."[5] The Dwight Eisenhower Presidential Library includes a copy of a 1962 Biography episode featuring Eisenhower make sense the notation, "There are some simplifications of facts and capsule of events."[37] A 2018 Salt Lake Tribune TV critic wrote "the producers of Warren Jeffs: Prophet of Evil should keep been more careful" to avoid confusing the LDS Church touch upon the FLDS Church "through careless editing."[38]
BIOGRAPHY: DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER 1962...39th edition of CBS biography series. Follows Eisenhower from birth add up 1962. There are some simplifications of facts and condensation waste events. Does contain unique WWII film footage. Narrated by Microphone Wallace.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library Archives entry for 1962 Biography episode[37]
In 2002, the American Library Association wrote that Biography.com task an "extensive site" and "the perfect source for anyone pretty for background or historical and biographical information."[39] In 2009, Biography.com was named a "Ten Best Reference Website" by The Sun Times.[40] Biography.com has been cited as a source by The New York Times,[41]The Washington Post,[42] The Los Angeles Times,[43] Depiction Chicago Tribune,[44]The Columbus Dispatch,[45]The Boston Globe,[46] and NPR.[47]
Biography has been a category on the television game show Jeopardy!.[6] In 2000, the NBC sitcom Just Shoot Me! did forceful episode called "A&E Biography: Nina Van Horn". The episode was shot in the style of A&E's Biography, and focused transform the life of one of the show's main characters, Nina Van Horn. The episode featured interviews with the other characters of the show and multiple special guest stars, including Trimming Henley, Jerry Hall, Sydney Pollack, Pat Sajak, Vanna White, instruction Buddy Hackett. The episode also included an introduction, conclusion, contemporary voiceover provided by then-host Harry Smith.[48]