Book Review - Rebecca Eaton's Making Masterpiece
Making Masterpiece by Rebecca Eaton
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: October 29th, 2013
Format: Kindle, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★
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Rebecca Eaton was born in 1947 to an English Literature professor and an actress, both of whom where alcoholics, which led to her being a very organized, hypervigilant child working to meet everyone's needs. The show that would come to define her life is, as she sees it, stories about families. And her family circumstances led to her, in essence, producing their lives. She was there to keep everything on an even keel. It's no wonder that she ended up one of the most famous executive producers in television history. Spending much of her childhood in books when not managing her family she received an English degree from Vassar and on August 9, 1969, she left New York for London to begin her job at the BBC, it just happened to be the same day as the Manson murders. She knew nothing about radio, or even that the job was in radio, all she knew was that she could live in London for a year and that's where she wanted to be. This was when her love affair with England truly began. Meanwhile America's love affair with England was also beginning in earnest. With the airing of The Forsyte Saga in the same year Americans couldn't get enough period dramas from across the pond. PBS was officially formed in 1970 and in 1971 Masterpiece Theatre was launched with The First Churchills, a show no one, particularly the host Alistair Cook, who would be on one year contracts the entirety of his twenty-one year tenure, liked. The show was entirely paid for by Mobil, with the first season consisting of thirty-nine hours of already-made BBC drama. Mobil believed in affinity marketing, if Masterpiece Theatre was beloved and classy, they would be viewed the same way. But it was a delicate dance that would end spectacularly after thirty-three years. By the second year of Masterpiece Theatre Rebecca was already in the door at WGBH in Boston. She was producing non-fiction shows and documentaries. She developed a strong reputation and work ethic and when the second executive producer of Masterpiece Theatre died of Cancer Rebecca was offered the position. On the same day she learned she was pregnant. She took the leap and ended up on the journey of a lifetime. When British tastes started to change to modern fare and the backlog of shows that Masterpiece Theatre could buy dried up, Rebecca was the one leading the charge to not just produce shows that were already in the pipeline but to suggest and shepherd new shows. And thus Middlemarch and The Buccaneers were made. Which lead the British to see that there was still an interest in period dramas. But Masterpiece Theatre and Rebecca would again and again come up against changing audiences and expanding markets and, in a rather remarkable show of vengeance, how petty HBO could be. Yet they weathered the storms, they rebranded, and while The Buccaneers was a resounding hit, they were always looking for their next Upstairs Downstairs or The Jewel in the Crown. Which would unexpectedly arrive in the form of Downton Abbey. A show Rebecca initially turned down but everything worked out. Because as she's said, "I've been very, very lucky in my career, in spite of myself."
Historically I have never been a fan of Rebecca Eaton. The reason is twofold. The way her name appears in the credits of the shows she has executive produced makes her seem, to me, and apparently others, above Masterpiece. That she is somehow better than her job title and that she alone should be getting credit for a show she might have had no involvement in other than buying it for distribution. It has never sat well with me and has made me think less of her. The second reason is more to do with my local PBS station, WHA-TV. They are not well run and their practices can be a bit sus. Rebecca Eaton was coming to do a big event for WHA-TV which is located on the UW-Madison campus within Vilas Hall which houses the departments of Comm Arts and Theatre and Drama. I was invited because not only was I a Theatre and Drama alumna but a PBS supporter. I was excited. Then the day before the event they sent out an email saying that the event was free but meeting Rebecca cost extra. I remember it as a hundred dollars, my Dad thinks it was more. I mean, I know they need to make money, but it was badly timed. Why not have a great event with Rebecca and have her ask for donations not demand an entrance fee right before your partygoers head out the door? Needles to say I did not attend and that was the last fuck I had to give with regards to my local PBS station. Therefore I approached this book with mild trepidation. Booked as a biography of someone I don't really like I think the average person would question my sanity. But my love for Masterpiece is so great that I will endure any hardship. I mean, just the lengths I go to to watch old shows is staggering and so much more energy than I expended downloading this to my Kindle. Plus I got it on sale. I was actually expecting it to be more of a autobiography given some reviews I had read. But it's not really her bio, just a bio inasmuch as how her upbringing prepared her for the job and what was happening in her life to frame her state of mind while dealing with Masterpiece. Because that's whose biography this is, this is Masterpiece's. Rebecca just happened to be there for a lot of it and was able to get the stories. She's a plainspoken writer who relies too much on aphorisms and platitudes, but she's willing to admit when she makes mistakes and that she was always constantly learning on the job. She never stopped. She openly admits that they could have had Colin Firth in a wet shirt back in 1996 but she was convinced that viewers wouldn't care. She was wrong and it made her realize that adaptions of classics aren't one and done but cyclical. Each generation wants their own version. But the incident of losing out on Colin Firth just demonstrates how myopic she can be. She never thought Mobil would leave, she never thought that HBO would be a threat, and seeing as this was written before the streaming boom, one can only imagine what that has done to their numbers with so many outlets vying for the same content. But what made me sad reading this book is that it was the introductions of Alistair Cooke and Russell Baker and Diana Rigg and Vincent Price that set Masterpiece and Mystery! apart and that is gone with the changing times. This is true lost media and I mourn its loss. At least Alan Cumming makes up for a bit and that's down to Rebecca. So I guess I can say I've changed my tune with regard to her. But not in regard to WHA-TV.
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