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53-431: Masterpiece is known for presenting adaptations of novels and biographies , but it also shows original television dramas. The first title to air was The First Churchills , starring Susan Hampshire as Sarah Churchill . Other programs presented on the series include The Six Wives of Henry VIII ; Elizabeth R ; I, Claudius ; Upstairs, Downstairs ; The Duchess of Duke Street ; The Citadel ; The Jewel in

106-519: A Club Med resort in Sicily, because it sounded "British and heraldic"). In the opening to the "Classic" strand of shows, the word "Theatre" appears for a brief moment, apparently in order to maintain WGBH's trademark registration on the former name (in 2011, the show's 40th anniversary, the opening was altered to show "Classic" briefly before showing "40 years"). The theme music was composed by Man Made Music, Inc;

159-541: A BBC Advisory Committee headed by George Bernard Shaw for correct pronunciation . In 1935, Cooke also became London Correspondent for NBC . Each week, he recorded a 15-minute radio dialogue for American listeners on life in Britain, under the series title of London Letter . In 1936, he intensively reported on the Edward VIII abdication crisis for NBC. He made several talks on the topic each day to listeners in many parts of

212-463: A film review on the spot, and a few minutes later, he was offered the job. Cooke replaced Oliver Baldwin as the BBC 's film critic on 8 October 1934 and gave his first BBC broadcast: "I declare that I am a critic trying to interest a lot of people into seeing interesting films", he told his audience. "I have no personal interest in any company. As a critic I am without politics and without class." He sat on

265-435: A film, stage play, or video game. It can also involve adapting the same literary work in the same genre or medium just for different purposes, e.g. to work with a smaller cast, in a smaller venue (or on the road), or for a different demographic group (such as adapting a story for children). Sometimes the editing of these works without the approval of the author can lead to a court case. It also appeals because it works well as

318-409: A flop upon its theatrical release. It has since been restored to just over four hours and is considered one of the greatest films ever made. One book that has been adapted very frequently (in one form or another) is Charles Dickens ' 1843 Christmas story A Christmas Carol , which has around 20 film adaptations to date. Books and plays adapted into video games include The Witcher , based on

371-400: A portrait painter and the widow of neurologist A. Whitfield Hawkes, the son of Albert W. Hawkes , on 30 April 1946. Their daughter, Susan, was born on 22 March 1949. Cooke took up golf in his mid-fifties, developing a fascination with the game, despite never attaining an extraordinary level of skill. He was driven by his love of golf to devote many of his Letter from America episodes to

424-456: A story; it has interesting characters, who say and do interesting things. This is particularly important when adapting to a dramatic work, e.g. film, stage play, teleplay, as dramatic writing is some of the most difficult. To get an original story to function well on all the necessary dimensions—concept, character, story, dialogue, and action—is an extremely rare event performed by a rare talent. Perhaps most importantly, especially for producers of

477-535: The New York Supreme Court , to 18 to 54 years' imprisonment. The entire story of the theft was featured in a documentary aimed at educating the public about modern-day grave robbery . On the morning of 7 July 2013, at age 49, Michael Mastromarino died at St. Luke's Hospital after suffering from bone cancer . In 1932 Cooke became engaged to Henrietta Riddle, the daughter of the English actor Henry Ainley and

530-431: The 30th anniversary of the show, it presented Masterpiece : The American Collection , nine works by American writers, including Thornton Wilder 's Our Town , starring Paul Newman . One of television's most honored series, the various shows aired on Masterpiece have won numerous Emmy and Peabody Awards . In 2013, TV Guide ranked it #3 in its list of the 60 Greatest Dramas of All Time and #16 in its list of

583-559: The 60 Greatest Shows of All Time. The success of the broadcast of the 1967 version of The Forsyte Saga on NET (the precursor of PBS) led Stanford Calderwood, then serving as president of WGBH, to investigate whether the BBC would sell programs to the station. Suggestions for the series format came from, among others, Frank Gillard in the UK and Christopher Sarson in the US. In looking for an underwriter for

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636-432: The BBC and ITV – and once they're done, we bring them back here. It's also my job is to make sure the whole country knows about Masterpiece and knows about whatever show is being produced. There's a great deal of publicity and marketing to be done. I also have to raise money. In 2008, the word "Theatre" was dropped, and the show, officially known as Masterpiece , was split into three different sections. Masterpiece Classic

689-563: The Baroness von Hütten, but she broke off the engagement the following year while he was in America on a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship . He met Ruth Emerson, a great-grandniece of Ralph Waldo Emerson , in 1933, and they married on 24 August 1934. Their son, John Byrne Cooke , was born 5 October 1940 in New York City, New York. Alistair Cooke divorced Ruth in 1944, and married Jane White Hawkes ,

742-573: The Brothers Grimm story of the same name and King John , the first known film to be based on the works of Shakespeare. The 1900 film Sherlock Holmes Baffled , directed by Arthur Marvin featured Arthur Conan Doyle 's detective character Sherlock Holmes intruding upon a pseudo-supernatural burglary. The film, considered the first detective movie, ran for only 30 seconds and was originally intended to be shown in hand-cranked Mutoscope machines. Méliès' 1902 original science-fiction feature A Trip to

795-560: The Crown ; Reckless ; House of Cards ; Traffik , and Jeeves and Wooster . More recent popular titles include Prime Suspect , The Forsyte Saga , Sherlock , and Downton Abbey . The theme music played during the opening credits is the Fanfare-Rondeau from Suite of Symphonies for brass, strings and timpani No. 1 by French composer Jean-Joseph Mouret . The theme was performed by Collegium Musicum de Paris. Roland Douatte

848-609: The Home Front in the Second World War in the UK) in 2006. The first American Letter was broadcast on 24 March 1946 (Cooke said this was at the request of Lindsey Wellington, the BBC's New York Controller); the series was initially commissioned for only 13 instalments. The series came to an end 58 years later in March 2004, after 2,869 instalments and less than a month before Cooke's death. Along

901-505: The Masterpiece Trust as a fundraising initiative, in collaboration with WGBH Boston. The Trust gives donors the opportunity to support their local PBS station and also "secure the future of superb British drama...invest upfront in the development of new scripts and programs, and grow the [Masterpiece] series both on-air and online". In the same year the series attracted new sponsors Viking River Cruises and Ralph Lauren (Ralph Lauren

954-570: The Moon was based loosely on two popular novels of the time: Jules Verne 's From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and H. G. Wells ' The First Men in the Moon (1901). The first of many adaptations of the Brothers Grimm tale Snow White was released in 1902 while the earliest surviving copy is the 1916 version . 1903 saw the release of Alice in Wonderland directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow ,

1007-641: The United States (1972), a 13-part television series about the United States and its history, was first broadcast in both the United Kingdom and the United States in 1973, and was followed by a book of the same title. It was a great success in both countries, and resulted in Cooke's being invited to address the joint Houses of the United States Congress as part of Congress's bicentenary celebrations. After

1060-514: The United States in this role, becoming the subject of many parodies, including " Alistair Cookie " in Sesame Street ("Alistair Cookie" was also the name of a clay animated cookie-headed spoof character created by Will Vinton as the host of a video trailer for The Little Prince and Friends ), and Alistair Quince, portrayed by Harvey Korman , who introduced many episodes in the early seasons of Mama's Family . America: A Personal History of

1113-416: The United States. He calculated that in ten days he spoke 400,000 words on the subject. During the crisis, he was aided by a twenty-year-old Rhodes Scholar , Walt Rostow , who would become Lyndon B. Johnson 's national security advisor. Cooke stated that, on a visit to New York in 1936, he'd been impressed at how freely newspapers and journals were able to report on the abdication crisis whilst all comment

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1166-408: The case of Hollywood films, judgments for the plaintiff can run into the millions of dollars, but these have typically been for outright theft of a screenplay idea rather than for fraudulent adaptations (see Buchwald v. Paramount ). Because of the importance of telling a story with a limited number of characters , short stories often make better sources for adaptable material than do novels. For

1219-569: The fantasy novels and short stories by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski ; Romance of the Three Kingdoms , based on a Chinese 14th-century historical novel; I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream , based on a short story by Harlan Ellison ; and Hamlet , based on the play by William Shakespeare. The horror video game Parasite Eve is a sequel to a novel by the same name . Plagiarism occurs in every genre , and throughout history, but such literary rights violations can be challenged in court. In

1272-509: The first movie adaptation of Lewis Carroll 's 1865 children's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland . The first feature-length film to be shot entirely in Hollywood was Cecil B. DeMille 's first assignment, The Squaw Man , in 1914, which was the first of three movie versions (all directed by DeMille) based on Edwin Milton Royle 's 1905 play of the same name . Since the early days of

1325-555: The fore with visits to Hollywood . Cooke saw a newspaper headline stating that Oliver Baldwin , the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin 's son, had been sacked by the BBC as film critic. Cooke sent a telegram to the Director of Talks, asking if he would be considered for the post. He was invited for an interview and took a Cunard liner back to Britain, arriving twenty-four hours late for his interview. He suggested typing out

1378-405: The genre, major films have been largely adapted: The most celebrated of the early adaptations is Erich von Stroheim 's Greed , a 1924 adaptation of the 1899 novel McTeague by naturalist writer Frank Norris . The director intended to film every aspect of the novel in great detail, resulting in a 9½-hour epic feature. At studio insistence, the film was cut down to two hours and was considered

1431-427: The opening sequences were designed by Kyle Cooper of Prologue. As of 2017's broadcast of Victoria series 1, Masterpiece Classic no longer aired with a regular host and the series was no longer branded as "Masterpiece Classic" but simply "Masterpiece". In March 2007, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the show, PBS aired an entertainment special produced and directed by Darcy Corcoran. The Best of Masterpiece

1484-415: The opening video switched to views of antique books and other literary artifacts, many of which titles had been dramatized on the program. In 1980, Masterpiece gained a sister series, Mystery! , featuring a mix of contemporary and classic British detective and crime series , such as The Inspector Lynley Mysteries , Agatha Christie's Miss Marple , and Touching Evil . In 2000, to commemorate

1537-505: The original owners, generally the British producer or distributor. Interviewed in 2017, Eaton described her role at Masterpiece as "the person who chooses which British programs will be included in Masterpiece...looking at a lot of shows that are already made, reading scripts, and choosing the ones that would suit this audience." They're made by British companies and British broadcasters – for

1590-493: The program, Anthony Andrews thanked the audience for voting the 1981 serial Brideshead Revisited as the seventh favorite series. He then pointed out that it had not aired as a part of Masterpiece Theatre . Rather, it had aired as a part of the PBS series entitled Great Performances . Literary adaptation Literary adaptation is adapting a literary source (e.g. a novel, short story, poem) to another genre or medium, such as

1643-527: The role. Cooke appeared for two decades until 1992; native Baltimorean , Pulitzer Prize -winning author and longtime columnist for The New York Times , Russell Baker (1925–2019), was next and hosted for over a decade from 1992 to 2004. From 2004 to 2008, it was broadcast without a host. The original series producer was Sarson. He was succeeded in 1973 by Joan Wilson. The current series producer, Rebecca Eaton , took over in 1985 after Wilson's death from cancer. Mobil pulled out in 2004. In 2011 Eaton launched

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1696-419: The screen and stage, an adapted work is more bankable; it represents considerably less risk to investors, and poses the possibilities of huge financial gains. This is because: Works of literature have been adapted for film from the dawn of the industry. Some of the earliest examples come from the work of Georges Méliès, who pioneered many film techniques. In 1899, he released two adaptations— Cinderella based on

1749-579: The series was broadcast in Ireland, Cooke won a Jacob's Award , one of the few occasions when this award was made to the maker of an imported programme. On 2 March 2004, at the age of 95, following advice from his doctors, Cooke announced his retirement from Letter from America —after 58 years, the longest-running speech radio show in the world. Cooke died at midnight on 30 March 2004, at his home in New York City. He had been ill with heart disease, but he died of lung cancer , which had spread to his bones. He

1802-455: The series, Calderwood eventually met with Herb Schmertz of Mobil Corporation . Schmertz was able to gain funding for the show, and with Joan Wilson of WGBH-TV bought the US distribution rights for fifty hours of British dramas for about $ 1 million per year. He and several other men, including Frank Marshall, met in London and made a selection of programs to be broadcast. Decisions on the format of

1855-467: The show were finalized and the series premiered on January 10, 1971, with the first episode of The First Churchills . The working title for the series had been The Best of the BBC , which was changed to Masterpiece Theatre before the first broadcast, with Sarson insisting upon the British spelling for Theatre . The series was hosted by British-American broadcaster and author / journalist Alistair Cooke (1908–2004), who initially had been reluctant to take

1908-652: The show. In 1966 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland . He chose the subject "The Jet Age and the Habits of Man". In 1971, he became the host of the new Masterpiece Theatre , PBS 's showcase of quality British television. He remained its host for 22 years, before retiring from the role in 1992. He achieved his greatest popularity in

1961-527: The stage, in addition, theater audiences tend to accept and prefer works of a more conceptual, thought-based nature, meaning their preferences need to be considered when selecting a work for adaptation, but also when determining how best to adapt it. The stage imposes physical limits of size and technology. Not every illusion that can be made to appear real on the movie screen can be made to appear so on stage. Alistair Cooke Alistair Cooke (born Alfred Cooke ; 20 November 1908 – 30 March 2004)

2014-517: The topic, speaking once of the thrill of learning "how much more awesome was the world of golf than the world of politics." Cooke became close friends with many of the leading golfers of the era: Jack Nicklaus , in the introduction to a compilation of Cooke's writing on golf, recounts his many notable achievements, but describes him as "most of all ... a friend." In 1973, Cooke was awarded an honorary knighthood ( KBE ) for his "outstanding contribution to Anglo-American mutual understanding." Cooke

2067-530: The way, it picked up a new name (changing from American Letter to Letter from America in 1950) and an enormous audience, being broadcast not only in Britain and in many other Commonwealth countries, but throughout the world by the BBC World Service . In 1947, Cooke became a foreign correspondent for the Manchester Guardian newspaper (later The Guardian ), for which he wrote until 1972. It

2120-572: Was a British-American writer whose work as a journalist, television personality and radio broadcaster was done primarily in the United States. Outside his journalistic output, which included Letter from America and America: A Personal History of the United States , he was well known in the United States as the host of PBS Masterpiece Theatre from 1971 to 1992. After holding the job for 22 years, and having worked in television for 42 years, Cooke retired in 1992, although he continued to present Letter from America until shortly before his death. He

2173-427: Was broadcast intermittently from 1938, but the idea was shelved with the outbreak of World War II in 1939. During this time, as well, Cooke undertook a journey through the whole United States, recording the lifestyle of ordinary Americans during the war and their reactions to it. The manuscript was published as The American Home Front: 1941–1942 in the United States (and as Alistair Cooke's American Journey: Life on

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2226-565: Was cremated, and his ashes were clandestinely scattered by his family in Central Park . On 22 December 2005, the New York Daily News reported that several of Cooke's bones, and those of many other people, had been surgically removed before cremation by employees of Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, New Jersey , a tissue-recovery firm. The thieves sold the bones for use as medical-grade bone grafts . The cancer from which Cooke

2279-533: Was heavily involved in the arts, was editor of Granta , and set up the Mummers , Cambridge's first theatre group open to both sexes, from which he notably rejected a young James Mason , telling him to stick to architecture. Cooke changed his name to Alistair when he was 22, in 1930. Cooke's first visit to the United States was in 1932 on a two-year Commonwealth Fund Fellowship (now Harkness Fellowship ) to Yale and Harvard, where his acting and music skills came to

2332-455: Was hosted by Sir Derek Jacobi and featured interviews with Dame Helen Mirren , Hugh Laurie , Damian Lewis , Robson Green , Ian Richardson , Gillian Anderson , Charles Dance , Alex Kingston , Anthony Andrews and Jean Marsh . The countdown special was based on more than 20,000 survey responses posted to the Masterpiece and PBS affiliate websites, the top 12 series were: At the end of

2385-513: Was initially hosted by Gillian Anderson ; the following year, Laura Linney took her place. Masterpiece Mystery! is hosted by Alan Cumming . Masterpiece Contemporary was hosted initially by Matthew Goode , who was replaced by David Tennant in 2009. All three versions received their own opening sequences and theme music with a common signature based upon the First Suite in D by Mouret (originally chosen by Sarson, who had heard it played at

2438-409: Was only yards away from Robert F. Kennedy when he was assassinated , witnessing the events that followed. In 1952, Cooke became the host of CBS 's Omnibus , the first U.S. commercial network television series devoted to the arts. It featured appearances by such personalities as Hume Cronyn , Jessica Tandy , Gene Kelly and Leonard Bernstein . Jonathan Winters was the first comic to appear on

2491-553: Was reportedly happy to accept, because in the words of Thomas Jefferson , it did not involve "the very great vanity of a title." Having relinquished his British citizenship during World War II, he could not be called "Sir Alistair". After Alistair Cooke's death the Fulbright Alistair Cooke Award in Journalism was established as a tribute to the man and his life and career achievements. The award supports students from

2544-502: Was still censored in London. Very soon, in 1937, he immigrated. He became a United States citizen and swore the Oath of Allegiance on 1 December 1941, six days before Pearl Harbor was attacked. Shortly after immigrating, Cooke suggested to the BBC the idea of doing the London Letter in reverse: a 15-minute talk for British listeners on life in America. A prototype, Mainly About Manhattan ,

2597-474: Was subsequently replaced by Farmers Insurance ). In the first three years the Trust raised $ 12 million from 45 donors. The Masterpiece approach has been reported as being to put up about 10% of the production budget, in return for distribution rights and a degree of consultation on casting and content, but not editorial control. Masterpiece licences programs for several years, after which the broadcast rights revert to

2650-407: Was suffering had spread to his bones, making them unsuitable for grafts. Reports indicated the people involved in selling the bones altered his death certificate to hide the cause of death and reduce his age from 95 to 85. Michael Mastromarino, a former New Jersey–based oral surgeon , and Lee Cruceta agreed to a deal that resulted in their imprisonment. Mastromarino was sentenced on 27 June 2008, in

2703-451: Was the conductor. It was recorded in 1954 by Vogue Records in Paris, France, and was later remastered in stereo and re-released by Nonesuch Records in the 1960s. During the first seasons in the 1970s, the theme music accompanied varying closeup shots of a waving British flag, which panned out into a still image of a British flag on a staff serving as the P in "Masterpiece". In the late 1970s,

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2756-506: Was the father of author and folk singer John Byrne Cooke . He was born Alfred Cooke in Salford , Lancashire, England, the son of Mary Elizabeth (Byrne) and Samuel Cooke. His father was a Methodist lay preacher and metalsmith by trade; his mother's family were of Irish Protestant origin. He was educated at Blackpool Grammar School , and won a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge , where he gained an honours degree (2:1) in English. He

2809-783: Was the first time he had been employed as a staff reporter; all his previous work had been freelance. In reporting on the Montgomery bus boycott , begun by Rosa Parks and led by Martin Luther King , Cooke expressed sympathy for the economic costs imposed on the city bus company and referred to Mrs. Parks as "the stubborn woman who started it all ... to become the Paul Revere of the boycott." Martin Luther King complained about Cooke's "biased and hostile reports", which motivated philosopher Michael Dummett to write his own refuting report, which The Guardian refused to publish. In 1968, Cooke

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