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“This is the Woody doc everybody has been waiting for, and I am delighted that this creative giant is finally assuming his rightful place in the American Masters library,” says Susan Lacy, series creator and executive producer of American Masters, an eight-time winner of the Emmy^® Award for Outstanding Primetime Non-Fiction Series. The series is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, the parent company of THIRTEEN and WLIW21, New York’s public television stations, and operator of NJTV. For nearly 50 years, WNET has been producing and broadcasting national and local documentaries and other programs to the New York community.

“Woody Allen was always the big ‘get’ for me,” says Robert Weide, best known for his long-term directing/producing stint on Curb Your Enthusiasm, which earned him Emmy^® and Golden Globe^® Awards. “The prolific nature of Woody’s output has provided me with an embarrassment of riches. In fact, Woody will have made three features just in the time it’s taken me to make this one documentary.”

Beginning with Allen’s childhood and his first professional gigs as a teen — furnishing jokes for comics and publicists — American Masters – Woody Allen: A Documentary chronicles the trajectory and longevity of Allen’s career: from his work in the 1950s-60s as a TV scribe for Sid Caesar, standup comedian and frequent TV talk show guest, to a writer-director averaging one film-per-year for more than 40 years. Weide covers Allen’s earliest film work in Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Sleeper, and Love and Death; frequent Oscar^® favorites such as Annie Hall, Manhattan, Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose, Purple Rose of Cairo, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Husbands & Wives, Bullets Over Broadway, and Mighty Aphrodite; and his recent globetrotting phase with Match Point, Vicky Christina Barcelona, and this year’s commercial success Midnight in Paris.

Exploring the ultimate “independent filmmaker’s” writing habits, casting, directing, and relationship with his actors, Weide traveled with Allen from the London set of You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger — a major coup “considering Woody has never allowed so much as an EPK [Electronic Press Kit] crew on his sets,” claims Weide — to the Cannes premiere of Midnight in Paris this May. He also filmed Allen at home, in the editing room and touring his childhood haunts in the Midwood section of Brooklyn. New interviews provide insight and backstory: actors Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Penelope Cruz, John Cusack, Larry David, Seth Green, Mariel Hemingway, Scarlett Johansson, Julie Kavner, Diane Keaton, Martin Landau, Louise Lasser, Sean Penn, Tony Roberts, Chris Rock, Mira Sorvino, Naomi Watts, Dianne Wiest, and Owen Wilson; writing collaborators Marshall Brickman, Mickey Rose and Doug McGrath; cinematographers Gordon Willis and Vilmos Zsigmond; Allen’s sister and producing partner Letty Aronson; producers Robert Greenhut and Stephen Tenenbaum; longtime managers Jack Rollins and Charles H. Joffe; casting director Juliet Taylor; pal Dick Cavett; and Martin Scorsese; among many others.

American Masters – Woody Allen: A Documentary also touches on Allen’s contributions as a writer for the theater and his casual pieces for The New Yorker, as well as his frequent moonlighting gig as a clarinet player with a New Orleans-style jazz band. “He never refused a request and he never declined to answer a question,” says Weide.

Woody Allen: A Documentary is a Whyaduck Productions, Rat Entertainment, Mike’s Movies, and Insurgent Media production in association with THIRTEEN’s American Masters for WNET. Robert Weide is director, writer, producer, and co-editor. Michael Peyser, Brett Ratner, Erik Gordon, Fisher Stevens, and Andrew Karsch are executive producers. Susan Lacy is the series creator and executive producer of American Masters.

American Masters is made possible by the support of the National Endowment for the Arts and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding for American Masters is provided by Rosalind P. Walter, The Blanche & Irving Laurie Foundation, Rolf and Elizabeth Rosenthal, Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, Jack Rudin, Jody and John Arnhold, Vital Projects Fund, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, Michael & Helen Schaffer Foundation, and public television viewers. Funding for this program is provided by Miriam and Sam Blatt.

What was Jeff Bridges’ reaction to American Masters’ decision to make a film about him?

Filmmaker Gail Levin

Gail Levin: One of the main points in the film is his reticence to take on projects all the time. So, I don’t think this one is really different for him. But, the twofold of it is that he’s always a little hesitant and he’s always a little bit halting, but once he’s in, he’s in. I think that can be said about this. I think that he was not sure what this meant – when you put this kind of a magnifying glass on somebody, it makes them feel a little awkward. But, having said that, I think he also just decided to get out of the way of it and let it be. So, I would say that’s how he approached it and that’s how I approached it as well – to not be in his way about it, but let him realize that this is his story.

Was there anything that you were surprised to learn about him during the making of the film?

GL: I was surprised to learn that what seems to be an easygoing guy is kind of a guy who frets a bit. He appears to be so easy and “dude-ish” in a way, but he’s not that laid back. He’s not uptight, be he’s intense and he thinks about things…it’s not an easy task for him to just give over to it. In the film, Mercedes Ruehl made this statement about how she felt that there was a sort of melancholy about him – then in the next part of the statement she said, she felt he was not a stranger to sadness. And I think there’s something about that that’s true – there’s another side to him. There is a joyfulness and a kidding around, but I think there is also a part of him that is very thoughtful, very pensive, and a bit darker – a bit more complex than you might expect. He’s not a guy you can take at face value at all.

What was the most challenging part of making this film?

GL: Exactly the same things! I didn’t know him at all, and we had a very short window to make the film in. That was both good and bad. I think it would be very hard to take on a film with somebody that you know well. That’s never a good idea. But also, you have to have time to build some sort of trust with someone and have the feeling that they know you’re going to be okay with them and that you feel that they’re going to be okay with you. We had very little time to establish that. The producers on this film – Neil Koenigsberg, Nikki Silver, Orly Wiseman – they’d worked with him for some time trying to do a feature film on a young adult book called The Giver. They know him very well, but I didn’t know him at all. But I think based on him knowing them, he was willing to assume that I was okay for this. Hopefully, that all worked out. Still, he and I didn’t have a relationship. Luckily enough on my end, I’ve watched his films all my life, so I knew his body of work, which was a big plus. But I was not an intimate of his at all, so there was a little bit of that – he had to sort of decide if I was okay, I had to hope he thought I was okay. It’s nervous making to do these things! What’s also good is that I didn’t develop a crush on him. (Laughs)

Bridges not only acts, but also is a musician, artist and accomplished photographer. How much of this is this reflected in the film?

Jeff Bridges

GL: It is. He’s extremely talented, and not just as an actor. I think he himself had hoped that he would be a musician – music is not something that just came with Crazy Heart. He’s played guitar since he was a kid, and loves it. So that was something to learn, because I always just thought – he’s a great actor, and he was able to learn enough guitar to really pull it off in Crazy Heart. I didn’t realize the extent of his love for music and how much he played and how much a part of his life that had always been. So, it’s really his double muse, music and acting. I think what he loves now and what is extremely wonderful about having won an Oscar for Crazy Heart is, he wins the Oscar playing a part of something he always wanted to be, which is a musician. He’s also got a little band now and does some public appearances, and I think that bridging (pardon the pun) of the loves in his life is nice.

In his paintings, he’s really rather Picasso-esque – he’s very free and fluid. It’s beautiful stuff. We devised to do this plexiglass idea in the film, which is from Picasso. I’ve always wanted to duplicate it, and he was the perfect person to do it with; he really got into it, which was fun.

You have directed and produced a number of shows for THIRTEEN, including previous American Masters films on Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. What first drew you to documentary film making and public television?

GL: For me, the arts are just an endless source of intelligence, brilliance, imagination, and originality. How people do what they do is so fascinating to me. I think it’s mysterious; it’s not something people can explain to you. So, if there’s some way to hang around, get some access, and get some ability to watch some of what happens, I think that’s very compelling stuff and we’re lucky if we can see some of that. I think the beauty of documentary work is that it’s a mystery too – you never know where it’s going to lead you. You start out with some notion of it, but it’s very different from a script. A script you write, you shoot against, and you know what the story is going to be. There’s always the element of surprise, but the surprise comes from performance, from something that’s improvised, it comes from someone who sees it inside an already determined framework. In documentary, it’s never determined. It’s never the same, and affords enormous possibility.

Is there anything else about the film you would like viewers to know?

GL: I would love people to know about John Goodman’s interview. In The Big Lebowski, John Goodman was hilarious, but he was a little bit hard to interview – he came in a little guarded. We started talking and all of a sudden, he started to laugh about Lebowski, about the character and about Jeff’s performance – he started to laugh in that way you laugh as a little kid, you start giggling and then you can’t stop. So we started laughing, but we didn’t want it to get picked up on the track…but I also wanted to keep him laughing. It was great!

Another thing I’m sorry didn’t happen was that we missed getting in one of Jeff’s friends since the 4th grade. Jeff has very long friendships. And these are not with movie stars – I’m sure he has those as well, but these are friends that he’s very loyal to, they’re very loyal to him, they still hang out…it’s very cool, and I’m sorry that that didn’t get enough real play in the film. He also has a strong family life, which we didn’t get to show enough of.

One other thing we didn’t get to do enough with is Jeff’s charitable and humanitarian work. He’s been working now with a group called No Kid Hungry, and I know he’s very strongly advocating to be sure that children eat in this country – there are hungry children on a level that we would not believe here.

What is your favorite Jeff Bridges film?

GL: My favorite Jeff Bridges film, aside from Lebowski – which is just a masterpiece – is Cutter’s Way… it is a small, noir-ish film, from the early ’80’s, and it is superb. Aside from that, my next favorite is The Fisher King, also because I adore Terry Gilliam, the director.

This interview was originally published on WNET’s Inside Thirteen.

Born in Brooklyn in 1917, Lena Horne became one of the most popular African American performers of the 1940s and 1950s. At the age of sixteen she was hired as a dancer in the chorus of Harlem’s famous Cotton Club. There she was introduced to the growing community of jazz performers, including Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, and Duke Ellington. She also met Harold Arlen, who would write her biggest hit, “Stormy Weather.” For the next five years she performed in New York nightclubs, on Broadway, and touring with the Charlie Barnet Orchestra. Singing with Barnet’s primarily white swing band, Horne was one of the first black women to successfully work on both sides of the color line.

Within a few years, Horne moved to Hollywood, where she played small parts in the movies. At this time, most black actors were kept from more serious roles, and though she was beginning to achieve a high level of notoriety, the color barrier was still strong. “In every other film I just sang a song or two; the scenes could be cut out when they were sent to local distributors in the South. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much of a chance to act,” she said. “CABIN IN THE SKY and STORMY WEATHER were the only movies in which I played a character who was involved in the plot.” Her elegant style and powerful voice were unlike any that had come before, and both the public and the executives in the entertainment industry began to take note. By the mid-’40s, Horne was the highest paid black actor in the country. Her renditions of “Deed I Do” and “As Long as I Live,” and Cole Porter’s “Just One Of Those Things” became instant classics. For the thousands of black soldiers abroad during World War II, Horne was the premier pin-up girl.

Much like her good friend Paul Robeson, Horne’s great fame could not prevent the wheels of the anti-Communist machine from bearing down on her. Her civil rights activism and friendship with Robeson and others marked her as a Communist sympathizer. Like many politically active artists of the time, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to perform on television or in the movies. For seven years the attacks on her person and political beliefs continued. During this time, however, Horne worked as a singer, appearing in nightclubs and making some of her best recordings. LENA HORNE AT THE WALDORF ASTORIA, recorded in 1957, is still considered to be one of her best. Though the conservative atmosphere of the 1950s took their toll on Horne, by the 1960s she had returned to the public eye and was again a major cultural figure.

In 1963, she participated in the march on Washington and performed at rallies throughout the country for the National Council for Negro Women. She followed that with a decade of international touring, recording, and acting on both television and the silver screen. Horne had found in her growing audience a renewed sense of purpose. All of this came crashing down when her father, son and husband died in a period of twelve months during the early 1970s. Horne retreated almost completely from public life. It was not until 1981 that she fully returned, making a triumphant comeback with a one-person show on Broadway. LENA HORNE: THE LADY AND HER MUSIC chronicled Horne’s early life and almost fifty years in show business. It ran for fourteen months and became the standard by which one-woman shows are judged. Throughout the past twenty years, Horne’s performances have been rare yet welcome occurrences.

Much has changed since the 16-year old who was Lena Horne danced her first tentative steps across the stage of the Cotton Club. Through myriad triumphs and challenges, she paved the way to stardom for countless others in the entertainment industry. Her continued musical, theatrical, and political efforts grew with the times and met each new decade with courage and grace. But, if one thing hasn’t changed, it’s Horne’s ability to break our hearts with her shimmering resonant voice, singing songs like “Black Coffee” and “Stormy Weather.”

Connected artists:

Louis Armstrong

Richard Avedon

Truman Capote

Duke Ellington

George Gershwin

John Hammond

Billie Holiday

Paul Robeson

Related Web sites:

Class Act

Biography at The Iceberg

Internet Movie Database Entry

Horne Resource Page