Welcome to OnQ magazine.

I'm Stacy Smith.

Tomorrow night, WQED is proud to bring you a major national production, The War That Made America.

It's the story of the French and Indian War fought right here in western Pennsylvania.

The four hour documentary shows how France and Britain clashed to gain control of North America, with the Native Americans holding the balance of power.

But The War That Made America also explores the beginning of George Washington's military career.

And as you would expect, casting young George Washington was a vital element in the production of the war that Made America.

We were looking for an actor who could capture the essence of young George Washington.

He was very tall, lanky, reddish hair, had a certain kind of nose.

And we were ultimatel very pleased with Larry Nehring.

And we found in our search.

When he came into the audition, we all just felt something.

He was very bright physically.

He is a theater actor mainly, and so he was able to carry off that comportment and the way we think people were in those days, the way they were trained, the way they learned to dance, they moved a certain way.

And he just had that.

Naturally, when I saw George on the set the first time, it was eerie to see how much he really di look like the pictures of George that I'd been working from.

So I felt like we had really nailed it.

Well.

The War That Made America premieres tomorrow night, January the 18th at 9:00, with part two airing Wednesday, January the 25th.

Also at 9:00, right here on WQED TV 13 with the premiere of WQED documentary.

And with us, this also being the war's 250th anniversary.

Interest in George Washington and his time period is greater than ever.

French and Indian War information and exhibits are showing up around the region, including at the Heinz History Center, Andy Masich runs the History Center and is also an OnQ contributor.

And tonight, Andy introduces three people working in very different ways to recreate the face of the young George Washington.

And those recreations will be seen in some very high profile places.

I wanted to make them pretty lean, but yet, muscular.

At 22 years of age, Washington was, a little bit taller than than the average man.

And as a younger person, I made his nose shorter, and I made his earlobes.

And then I'll put the eyes in from whatever thing you read there a blue gray.

Most people see Georg Washington just about every day.

The old George with white hair on the dollar bill.

But what about the young man who made his mark in western Pennsylvania during the French and Indian War?

Well, there are dozens of paintings of George Washington taken later in life, but it's a little bit more difficult when you try to recapture the image of a young George Washington in his 20s or 30.

But now, throug the work of historians, artists, even a forensic scientist, we're finally getting a pretty good picture.

Doctor Jeffrey Schwartz is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh and the forensic anthropologist for Allegheny County.

As a forensic anthropologist, what I often asked to do is to identify individuals, missing persons, unidentified person skeletons that are found in the woods.

The idea is to find out who this person was.

He's working now to create three life sized statues for Mount Vernon, George Washington's historic home in Virginia.

My mission for Mount Vernon is to reconstruct George Washington to three different ages.

This major exhibit will depict Washington in his 50s, when he was president, in his 40s at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War, and at age 19 which was the biggest challenge.

Doctor Schwartz had no access to Washington's skull or bones.

He relied on a plaster life mask molded from the real Washington's face.

The thing that I wanted to try to work from were the most accurate representations of Washington, and that involved three dimensional representations, such as this life mask.

The statue and a bust that the French court sculptor John Antoine Houdon did of Washington.

He did the bust of the life mask when he visited Washington at Mount Vernon.

Washington was 53 years old.

Using the life mask, Doctor Schwartz created digital images of the older George and then turned his focus to Washington's mouth.

Is there a horse or, donkey teeth?

These are cow lower teeth.

These are human teeth.

Washington started losing his teeth at age 24.

A study of his dentures was crucial to the reconstruction.

And what I wanted to do was to try to recapture what his oral cavity with his mouth was like, and try to reconstruct with his bones were like as an older person.

So then I could work backward, putting teeth and bone back into the jaws to make the younger George a younger jawbone was then worked into the older skull.

So once I have established that point, I could go on and to make the younger George, which we see here, bring down the jawline whic is hidden in the older George's, because he'd been losing his teeth back here.

And the younger George is, a 19 year old, which is what I was reconstructing.

He would have a well-defined angle at the back of his jaw.

The jawline would have been very pronounced during the three month process.

Doctor Schwartz also shortened Washington's nose and ears because cartilage grows as we age.

He softened George's brow, fattened up his cheeks, and figured out his body measurements.

Many of his contemporaries said that he was a powerfully built man.

Thomas Jefferson said that he was the best horseman in the colonies, bar none.

Could it just be artistic license that we see some of these portrait artists giving him those skinny legs?

Actually the statue is of of a very lanky person, and we've measured now and studied all his clothing.

As a 19 year old he would have been even thinner.

Do you think you found the young George Washington?

My opinion is that I think I've gotten as close to this as one can get.

So while I don't have access to Washington's bones, and while I'm not going to go into court to testify for the coroner or anybody, this is forensic in my mind.

And that I'm trying to eke out from the available evidence those features that were individualistic about George Washington.

But at the time when Washington first would have appeared here in western Pennsylvania, he was a young 21, 22 year old, barely out of his teens, very, very tall, had auburn hair, very athletic, a good horseman, had a very, commanding presence, by all accounts, that this recreation of young George is on display at the Heinz History Center.

We kind of centered in on this this moment at Fort Necessity.

His first real military action.

Major military engagement.

Scott Stephenson is an historian and curato of the Clash of Empires exhibit.

And this young George is not what visitors might expect.

So rather than see a heroic future father of his country, we wanted to give people a little bit of a little bit of a jolt as they walked around the corner.

So we we settled in on a scene at night when Washington has just surrendered to the French.

He's been forced to sign this, the surrender document, after a bloody battle and pouring down rain for the history centers.

George the Artist used a local actor and made a mold of his face.

Well, our actor Scott Kersh bomber had in common with young George Washington, kind of a suggestion of a double chin, the full cheeks and a fairly prominent nose.

That really made him a good, good match for, young George Washington.

And we wanted to show him in a kind of private moment, because it's the private George Washington that's so difficult for, just general people and the public and also for historians to get out.

In this very private setting, the woods of Butler County, an artist arrives at his studio.

Inside, Pat Martin is creating what may be the most widely seen model of young George.

How do you feel about 15 million people a year seeing your, your handiwork?

Well, to be honest with you, that's probably the the thing that attracted me most to this project.

Pat has been a museum sculptor for 30 years.

This six foot three George will be dressed and displayed at Pittsburg International Airport and remind travelers of how a youthful George Washington got his start right here in western Pennsylvania 250 years ago.

So what I did was fill in under the eyes a little bit as a reference.

Pat used Washington's face at age 53.

The line seemed to be a lot softer, and a younger man, doesn't have a sharp, brow ridge.

I softened that down a little bit, and he used George's eyes for inspiration.

Now, when I sculpted this, I put a pair of eyes in.

So you just get a feeling that you're dealing with a real human being.

There's a lot you can d with expression just on the way.

You point this eye and of course, with him, with his, his demeanor.

You probably want to looking up a little bit to make him look real or alive, he still has to has the skin texture.

The portraits done here, they shows a, a 5:00 shadow.

So we probably going to put that in there a little bit too.

All that attention to detail is for good reason.

Pat Martin hopes that every day thousands of people will admire his George from every angle.

With his demeanor.

I think I, I think it will leave an impression on people.

And perhaps these impressions of young George would have made an impression on George Washington himself.

I would hope he would say tha it's it's, pretty good likeness.

I think he'd recognize himself very quickly, but I think he'd probably be appalled because, of course, this is a this is a private side of a man who who was very conscious of his his status in society.

We know George's history now.

George, at 25, didn't know his history.

You know, there's this kind of sense of happiness, of joy and anticipation, I think, to say by George, that's me.

And joining us now is Andy Masich, the president and CEO of the Heinz History Center.

And he is also an OnQ contributo Thanks for joining us tonight.

Did I not get the memo on the dress?

Proper dress.

Well, you didn't get the memo.

Stacy, this is Benjamin Franklin's birthday and I'm off for the birthday party later this evening.

Is Ben going to be there?

He may be.

He sometimes shows for these things.

I guess so, but, you know, he was a contemporary of George Washington.

And one of the things that Ben Franklin commented on when he saw George Washington during the the long, grueling session of the Constitutional Convention is he would watch Washington falling asleep at, at his desk.

Well, Washington had these dentures that we just saw that were spring loaded.

They had they had, copper and steel springs right at the jaw.

And they would when Washington would fall asleep, he would his mouth would pop ope because they were spring loaded, open to keep them in his mouth.

And this just cracked Ben Franklin up.

He would just he would watch him and oh, there he goes.

That is fast.

One of the it's also fascinating in the in your report here tonight or the different approaches to try to come up with what he actually look like at different times.

Yeah.

You know, there's the, artistic approach, you know, sculpting the figure.

There's the life castin approach where you actually make a, you know, a plaster cast of someone's face.

This happens to be a copy of the 1785 Houdon mask where, the artist actually poured plaster right on Washington's face.

Made a perfect mold and impression.

And this is at what, age 50?

This was 53.

Yeah, yeah.

And so.

And then there's a combination of the two by, by softening the features by, by subtly changing things.

You can sort of youngify and old George, I want to move on here.

One of the exhibits that you saw that you brought to us i your report here is at the Heinz History Center, is a is a this lonesome George almost after surrendering Fort Necessity?

He did play an instrumental part in the French and Indian War.

The war that made America.

Absolutely.

I mean, he he started the war.

He fired the first shots of the war.

And we have him at the Histor Center, looking sort of dejected because he's looking at a document that the French have sent into his little Fort Necessity.

Fort built of necessity.

And it's all written in French, and it says, you must surrender because you assassinated a French officer, young Ensign Jumonville, and Washington knows that the only way he's going to extricate his command from this, this death trap at Fort Necessity is to sign this confession that the French have given him.

And we have the actual document.

It's been in Canada, in Quebec for 250 years, and it's the first time it's back here in western Pennsylvania.

Wow.

That was signed here.

And now it's back her for at least for a little while.

And that's something else.

Which brings us to The War That Made America documentary.

We did a big program on it last week on the on the initial kickoff for the program.

It is an important documentary.

We we've been saying that for some time.

Absolutely.

I mean, this is the first time, anyone has really attempted to put on film, the story of the war that really changed the map of the world and set up the world order that we know today.

It was a three way struggle between the British, the French and American Indian people who were politically savvy and militarily strong and held the balance of power.

Some of them fought for the French, some of them fought for the English.

Absolutely.

And they could have tipped the balance either way.

If they had gone the other way, we'd be speaking French tonight.

But what?

You can do it, I cannot.

While that documentary air starts to air tomorrow night, people can go to the Heinz History Center.

Because you do have the clash of the empires there.

The clash of empires will be here through April.

Till then, go on to Canada and then on to the Smithsonian Institution.

But this is, the time to come see 250 years, or or Pittsburgh, 250 years ago, with artifacts that haven't been in western Pennsylvania since the French and Indian War collected from England, France, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Canada, all over.

We brought them back for the first time.

Should be fascinating.

And it runs through April.

That's right.

All right, Andy, thanks so much for joining us this evening.

It's my pleasure.

Have fun.

Until then happy birthday I will.

Okay.

Again, if you want to experience the French and Indian War, you can see the Clash of the Empires exhibit.

It's at the Heinz History Center in the Strip District now through April the 15th.

And of course, you can see WQED production of The War That Made America tomorrow, January the 18th at 9:00.

And also part two airing on Wednesday, January the 25th, also at nine in the evening, right here on WQED TV 13.