BPS 321: Inside the Golden Age of Hollywood with George Stevens Jr.

George Stevens, Jr. has achieved an extraordinary creative legacy
over a career spanning more than 60 years. He is a writer,
director, producer, playwright and author. He has enriched the film
and television arts as a filmmaker and is widely credited with
bringing style and taste to the national television events he has
conceived.

As a writer, director and producer, Stevens has earned many
accolades, including 15 Emmys, two Peabody Awards for Meritorious
Service to Broadcasting, the Humanitas Prize and 8 awards from the
Writers Guild of America, including the Paul Selvin Award for
writing that embodies civil rights and liberties. In 2012 the Board
of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
voted to present Stevens with an Honorary Academy Award for
“extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement.”Stevens served
for eight years as Co-chairman of the President’s Committee on the
Arts and Humanities following his appointment by President Obama in
2009.

Stevens is Founding Director of the American Film Institute and
during his tenure, more than 10,000 irreplaceable American films
were preserved and catalogued to be enjoyed by future generations.
In addition, he established the AFI’s Center for Advanced Film
Studies, which gained a reputation as the finest learning
opportunity for young filmmakers.Stevens was executive producer of
The Thin Red Line, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards,
including Best Picture. He co-wrote and produced The Murder of Mary
Phagan, starring Jack Lemmon, which received the Emmy for
Outstanding Mini-Series. He wrote and directed Separate But Equal
starring Sidney Poitier and Burt Lancaster which also won the Emmy
for Outstanding Mini-Series. He produced an acclaimed feature
length film about his father, George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey
and in 1994 produced George Stevens: D-Day to Berlin, which
depicted the wartime experiences of his father – one of the most
highly regarded directors of all time. In collaboration with his
son and partner Michael Stevens, he produced the feature length
documentary Herblock – The Black & The White on the famed
political cartoonist Herbert Block for HBO.

Stevens made his debut as a playwright in 2008 with Thurgood, which
opened at the historic Booth Theater on Broadway. The play had an
extended run starring Laurence Fishburne as Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall. Fishburne received a Tony nomination and
returned to the role in the summer of 2010 with runs at the Kennedy
Center and the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. Thurgood was filmed
while at the Kennedy Center and shown on HBO in 2011.In 2006,
Alfred A. Knopf published Stevens’ Conversations with the Great
Moviemakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age – the first book to bring
together the interviews of master moviemakers from the American
Film Institute’s renowned Harold Lloyd Master Seminar Series.
Conversations with the Great Moviemakers – The Next Generation was
released by Knopf in April, 2012.


Please enjoy my conversation with George Stevens Jr.

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