Ken Burns—A Conversation with Public Television's Resident Historian

Ken Burns laughs now about the apprehension he felt on September 23, 1990, the day The Civil War premiered on prime-time television and change his life forever. He bad just completed a two-month promotional tour, a grueling process at which he is particularly adept, being a talented storyteller and eminently quotable. He checked out of a midtown Manhattan hotel on what was a Sunday morning, beginning the long drive back to his home in Walpole, New Hampshire. Suddenly seized with misgivings, he remembers thinking long and hard about the remarks of several reviewers who predicted that the Civil War would be "eaten alive," going head-to-head with network programming over five consecutive nights during the opening of a new commercial season. That evening, he and his wife, Amy Stechler Burns, were "completely unprepared for what was going to happen" next, as the first episode attracted 14 million viewers, eventually reaching more than 39 million by Thursday, the largest audience for a public television series ever. Ken admits, "I was flabbergasted! I still sort of pinch myself about it. It's one of those rare, instances in which something helped stitch the country together, however briefly, and the fact that I had a part in that is just tremendously satisfying." So much about Ken Burns's career defies the conventional wisdom. He is one public business's busiest and most celebrated producers in an era when the historical documentary generally holds little interest for most Americans. He operates his own independent company, Florentine Films, in a small New England village more than four hours north of New York City, hardly a crossroads in the highly competitive and often insular world of corporately funded, PBS-sponsored productions. He has already amassed a record of nine major PBS specials, addressing a wide range of topics from American history, including The Brooklyn Bridge (1982), The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God (1985), The Statue of Liberty (1985), Huey Long (1986), Thomas Hart Benton (1989), The Congress (1989), Empire of the Air (1992), and Baseball (1994), which have all won various awards and tributes from both professional and scholarly organizations and at international film festivals. Ken Bums, of course, is best known for his 11-hour documentary series, The Civil War (PBS, 1990). Between 1990 and 1992, accolades for Burns and the series took on institutional proportions. He won "Producer of the-Year" from the Producers Guild of America; two Emmys (for "Outstanding Information Series" and "Outstanding Writing Achievement"); a Peabody; a Golden Globe; a D.W. Griffith Award; two Grammys; a People's Choice Award for "Best Television Mini-Series"; and eight honorary doctorates from various American colleges and universities, among many other recognitions. Ken Burns was born in Brooklyn, New York, on July 29, 1953, and grew up in Ann Arbor, where his father taught cultural anthropology at the University of Michigan. He is a 1975 graduate of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he studied under still photographers Jerome Liebling and Elaine Mayes, and received a degree in film studies and design. Upon graduation, he and two of his college friends started Florentine Films and struggled for a number of years doing freelance assignments, finishing a few short documentaries before beginning work in 1977 on a film based on David McCullough's book, The Great Bridge (1972). Four years later, they completed The Brooklyn Bridge, which won several honors including an Academy Award nomination, thus ushering Burns into the ambit of public television. While editing The Brooklyn Bridge in 1979, Burns and one of his collaborators, Amy Stechler, moved Florentine Films to rural New Hampshire; they later married in 1982 and now have two young daughters, Sarah and Lilly. His dual passion for film and history is reflected in his memberships in both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, along with being only one of 250 enrollees in the select Society of American Historians. …