John Mansfield, former NOVA executive producer, dies at 84
The Emmy-winning television producer and writer, who served as NOVA EP from 1980-1984, died on Sunday, Jan. 17.
Emmy Award-winning television producer and writer John Mansfield served at WGBH Boston as NOVA’s executive producer from 1980 to 1984. Image courtesy of Laura Mansfield from the book, Nova: Adventures in Science, Addison-Wesley publishers, 1982
Emmy Award-winning television producer and writer John Mansfield died on Sunday, Jan. 17 at age 84. Mansfield served at WGBH Boston as NOVA’s executive producer from 1980 to 1984 after producing, directing, and writing more than 100 films for the BBC, including documentary films for its science series, Horizon.
During Mansfield’s tenure as executive producer, NOVA won multiple national and international awards—including a Peabody and Emmy award for The Miracle of Life—and became one of PBS’ most popular offerings. Mansfield executive produced dozens of NOVA films during his time at WGBH, including Anatomy of a Volcano, on the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption; Test-Tube Babies: A Daughter for Judy, on America’s first in vitro fertilization and “test-tube baby”; and It’s About Time, on the nature of time.
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“We are so grateful for the early, pioneering work that John did to help establish NOVA and put the series on such firm footing that now, 37 years later, we're still going strong,” NOVA Co-Executive Producer Chris Schmidt says.
“He absolutely loved his time at NOVA and at WGBH,” Mansfield’s daughter, Laura Mansfield, wrote in an email. “He described the interview to get the job...as an extraordinary and humbling experience—apparently you had to be interviewed by a panel of all the NOVA producers who would ultimately work on your team—a bit like a papal election.”
Laura adds that her father, originally from the United Kingdom, also loved the “simple pleasures” of living in Boston: the maples changing color in the fall, snowplowing during “the big winters” (“unlike anything we'd experienced in London at that time,” she says), and enjoying sushi, lobster, and Rockport, Mass’ chocolate ice cream.
Mansfield “was a very fair person,” says NOVA Senior Series Producer Melanie Wallace, who was hired by Mansfield as a researcher in 1983. “I knew he came from the BBC and from NOVA’s sister series HORIZON. And I was really nervous to meet him,” Wallace says of her interview for the position. “He grilled me.”
But after hiring Wallace as an entry-level employee, Mansfield quickly gave her a raise, having heard she was doing the same work as her senior counterpart.
“That totally changed my lifetime job trajectory for the better,” Wallace says. “Clearly he did not have to do that, but he saw the big picture and said ‘yes.’ That shows genuine compassion, I believe.”
After returning to London in 1984, Mansfield mentored TV producers "from Singapore to Syria," Laura Mansfield says, and wrote multiple award-winning training films and manuals in the process.
“Growing up I saw how much variety his job offered and how it enabled him to travel around the world and delve into so many different subjects and meet so many different and fascinating people,” says Laura, who initially had “no intention” of following in her father’s footsteps, but now works as a creative director at Outline Productions in London.
Mansfield is survived by his wife of 52 years, Fiona; daughters Laura and Tessa; and grandchildren Amber, Lily, Oscar, and Arlo.
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