Producer: A Memoir [Hardcover]

David L. Wolper (Author), Mike Wallace (Introduction), Art Buchwald (Introduction), David Fisher (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 25, 2003

From one of the most successful and influential producers in the entertainment industry, the man responsible for classics such as ROOTS, THE THORN BIRDS and L. A. CONFIDENTIAL, comes a fascinating memoir of life at the very hub of Hollywood. David L. Wolper and television were born in 1928. Wolper's entrepreneurial talents were obvious from the start, when he sold homegrown radishes to his mother for a penny each and delivered sealed envelopes for the wise guys who hung around New York's Copacabana nightclub. Part salesman, part visionary, Wolper began his television career in 1949 by peddling programmes to the newly created broadcasting stations. In the four decades since his production company, Wolper Productions, has created thousands of hours of diverse programming, including the two highest rated mini-series of all-time, ROOTS and THE THORN BIRDS. He has also produced such spectacles as the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and movies such as L. A. CONFIDENTIAL and WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Yet despite Wolper's numerous awards he has remained street-smart, wry and surprisingly down-to-earth. Told in a conversational, comfortable voice, PRODUCER is filled with funny and startling anecdotes about such diverse personalities as Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis Presley and John Lennon. The are also tales of other legendary filmmakers such as Orson Welles and Frederico Fellini. PRODUCER is the engaging and inspiring memoir of a true pioneer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wolper is one of Hollywood's most successful film and television producers, with over half a century of career highlights that include winning multiple Emmys and an Oscar, and producing cult favorite Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics. He's boastful about his accomplishments, but then, if you had brought the nation to a standstill for an entire week with Roots, would you keep quiet about it? After a quick recounting of his early career, Wolper gets right into the good stuff, beginning with a 1958 television program about the space race that jump-started his career as an independent television documentary producer; later, he introduced Jacques Cousteau to American audiences and created the first Biography series in 1965. He branched out into corporate films, produced work for both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, and expanded his TV work to include historical recreations, first for documentaries and later for TV movies. Although he recalls most of the behind-the-scenes complications with good humor, Wolper is clearly still frustrated by television critics' questions about fictional distortions in his earliest docudramas and vigorously defends his commitment to accuracy, even going out of his way to mention that Oliver Stone's JFK "outraged" him. As the shows start piling up, Wolper's chronology occasionally blurs, but the overwhelming array of celebrity anecdotes will easily distract readers from his occasional missteps. Photos.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

One of the earliest and most respected of Hollywood's independent television producers, Wolper (b. 1928) is forever linked to the miniseries Roots, based on Alex Haley's book. The epic not only established the miniseries as a prestigious medium and garnered big ratings but also proved a landmark in the history of American civil rights. With a refreshing lack of pretension and justifiable pride, Wolper relates how he and television matured together. Always a "hands-on" producer, he scorns today's Hollywood scene in which "getting a producing credit is only slightly more difficult than getting a library card." He recalls an early trial-and-error approach to producing documentaries, as well as the challenges, setbacks, and outright embarrassments (he admits to selling out when he made a thing called Do Blondes Have More Fun?). Anecdotes reveal famous people he has met along the way, including Jacques Cousteau and First Lady Betty Ford, and there are occasional moments of real-life drama when his producing duties put him in the center of world events, like the 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre. Throughout, Wolper maintains a conversational and candid tone. This portrait of a vanishing breed in Hollywood is recommended for large public and academic film and TV history collections.
Stephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1ST edition (February 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743236874
• ISBN-13: 978-0743236874
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,923,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars interesting and enjoyable, August 21, 2006

By 

John Adams (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Producer: A Memoir (Audio CD)

Working through all the cd's of the audiobook was a marathon, but surprisingly addicting. I came away most impressed with David Wolper's determination. He has the courage to see things through even when facing tremendous obstacles. I found that inspiring.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not the Great Book Others Claim, June 13, 2011

By 

Mediaman "TVviewer" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Producer: A Memoir (Hardcover)

This is referenced by other television authors as one of the greatest ever written about the TV industry--but it's not even close. You have to put up with an author's constant bragging and some misinformation. Mr. Wolper thinks very highly of himself--virtually everything he did he claims was the "first" or "part of television history," and early on he says his company was "one of the greatest incubators of talent in the history of the TV industry." Yet his boasting isn't supported by the facts and a number of details in the book are just plain wrong.

It's the story of an under-educated salesman with no background in the TV business who stumbled into making documentaries, which eventually led to producing some other successful series, events and mini-series. He states the facts in a somewhat dull manner and reveals little about the "whys" behind his decisions. He speeds through significant events (like his marriages and divorces) and gives too much detail on some insignificant things (like a show called "Divorce Hearing"). The book ends up being very much like his productions--filled with facts and minor details but missing an emotional connection to the audience.

The book, like his films, recreates history in a way that isn't quite accurate. He says one of his movies was the first to use American Indians to play native American roles, that he was the first to do "historical drama" (tell that to Cecil B. DeMille!) and that he was the first to put nature documentaries on prime time TV (about 20 years after Walt Disney actually did it!). He even at one point says, "I would pioneer a new television format, the miniseries" but then later recants with, "I may not actually be the father of the miniseries, but I can certainly claim to be a close relative." Either you did or you didn't--and, as in most of the things he says, he didn't.

You feel like he wants to leave this book as a rewrite of history so that future generations will see him as much more important than he really was. No doubt his company did some major work (Roots, Thorn Birds, Willie Wonka), but even those, in retrospect, look somewhat cheesy. There's no sense in this book that he understands that he wasn't the greatest producer in the history of the medium.

There are a couple interesting details. Get Christie Love was supposed to star Cicely Tyson but she quit two days before it started shooting. Quaker Oats financed Willie Wonka in order to introduce a new candy bar (which is why the movie title was changed from the book). And John Travolta insisted on staying on Welcome Back Kotter after his movie success, but he recorded all of his scenes over a two-month period.

At one point in the book the author actually admits that he staged some scenes of his "news" documentaries, and then heckles those who uphold journalistic standards which say you should never stage anything for a news piece! He isn't a true documentarian--he's just a showman trying to make a buck. He tries to make his "documentaries" news (by which there are professional standards that he didn't seem to follow) but they are really entertainment (which allowed him to gain from the creative history of others). Bottom line he was a salesman who really didn't know much about the business other than how to scramble to do anything to make a sale.

After awhile his self-praise gets so old. On just about every page there's another misleading claim or boast. He says he started the reality TV format (uh...no he didn't), he says at one point that he "changed history," a plane crash that killed his crew members was "the most devastating accident in the history of the entertainment industry, and he claimed he was "one of the top ten men who understood the women's movement."

I recommend the reader skim through the first hundred pages to get to some of the interesting, more modern, TV stories. The dry storytelling style and constant bragging otherwise makes for a long read.