![]() ![]() Cooke was convinced to be the host, a role he’d serve for the next 21 years. Everything quickly fell into place: a WGBH producer knew just the right theme song for the show, having vacationed at a Club Med with his wife years earlier where at mealtimes they played the trumpet-led “Fanfare for the King’s Supper” by J.J. ![]() The rest is history: With an initial million-dollar investment, Mobil oil became the founding and longtime corporate sponsor of what was christened Masterpiece Theatre, a weekly program(me) that would import televised dramas from across the pond. The Brits Have Been Teaching Americans How to Be Funny for Decades “So although I had never seen a single episode, I assured Stan Calderwood that The Forsyte Saga was one of my favorite shows.” “Now, in those days-and I suppose the same holds true today-even those people who didn’t watch serious drama on public television would usually say that they did,” Schmertz later wrote, accurately, in his 1986 book Good-Bye to the Low Profile: The Art of Creative Confrontation. Calderwood had noticed some attention around the show, and he had also realized that the price tag of licensing something like that for American audiences was rather achievable, particularly for a going concern of Mobil’s size: $390,000 for 39 hours worth of BBC programming. In 1970, public relations impresario Herb Schmertz-sort of the Don Draper of Mobil oil-got a call from Stan Calderwood, then the president of the Boston-based public TV station WGBH, to ask if he’d been watching a British miniseries called The Forsyte Saga, which had been airing on American public television. The story of Masterpiece begins, as so many classic American tales do, with a guy living by the fake-it-till-you-make-it creed. And it has done so by being a constant presence amid the world’s perpetual tumult, a diplomatic mission with costume dramas as its lingua franca and droll comedians as its emissaries. It has served as a launching pad for some of the most acclaimed actors around the globe-from Helen Mirren to Benedict Cumberbatch. Since its start in 1971, Masterpiece has introduced American audiences to literary adaptations, twisty mysteries, and original family sagas. It also serves as a fitting reminder of what Masterpiece has been for more than half a century. To hear Laurie recall the memory feels itself like a scene out of a British TV show: the wry recollection, the framing of one’s personal story against a backdrop of sweeping geopolitical stakes, the marked contrast in goings-on behind and in front of any given wall. He switches briefly into an American accent to announce, with an affable flick of his hand, “You crazy guys!” “I suppose they were deliberating whether or not they were going to go ahead with this crazy scheme,” by which he means Operation Desert Storm. … A lot of people whispering into the cuff of their tuxedos and making signs at each other.” The next day, the Masterpiece contingent got a White House tour “while Bush sat in the Oval Office,” he says. So Washington was quite an exciting place to be on that particular night. “It was,” he thinks, “the night before the United Nations deadline ran out just before the first Gulf War. But that wasn’t the real reason for the rather charged atmosphere, Laurie says. Pairs of British actors were scattered at tables decorated with props related to their performances. Beloved Masterpiece host Alistair Cooke was among those in attendance. It was an exciting, proud night for internationally minded patrons of the arts. ![]() ![]() State Department,” says Laurie, who at the time was a 31-year-old goofball whose comedic series, ITV’s Jeeves and Wooster, was a Masterpiece pick on American TV. screens, was turning 20 years old, and “PBS celebrated with a dinner in the U.S. Masterpiece Theatre, the program that delivered quality British television to U.S. When Hugh Laurie visited Washington, D.C., in January 1991, for a reception honoring the Public Broadcasting Service, “we felt there was a bit of a buzz in the air,” the actor recalls. From Masterpiece Theatre to Love Island, join us as we look back on some of the iconic shows that have crossed the pond in the past century. To mark the anniversary, The Ringer is celebrating one of the BBC’s chief exports to the United States: British TV. Transmitting news and entertainment across radio and television, the BBC would go on to have a far-reaching impact on not only the United Kingdom, but also audiences worldwide. One hundred years ago this week, the company that would become known as the British Broadcasting Corporation was founded in London. ![]()
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