Biography
Jac Venza was a public television producer who was directly responsible for most of the theatre and music programs that have been seen on PBS since its creation in 1970. From the early 1960s until his retirement in 2005, Venza brought such programs as NET Playhouse, Live from Lincoln Center, American Playhouse, American Masters, and Great Performances to millions of viewers. He won a Personal Peabody Award in 1998.
He began his career on CBS in the 1950s, where he began to notice the scarcity of programming devoted to the fine arts on television. It was his dream to bring more of it to the home screen on a regular basis, but he did not receive a full opportunity to do so until the creation of National Educational Television, where it soon became possible, thanks largely to Venza, to see great dramatic literature regularly performed by some of the world's most renowned actors. A then-unknown Dustin Hoffman made his first major television appearance in a play - Ronald Ribman's The Journey of the Fifth Horse - on NET in 1966. NET Playhouse was perhaps the first television anthology to present commercial-free, full-length productions (rather than one-hour or ninety-minute adaptations) of theatrical classics such as Arthur Miller's adaptation of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People. When NET became PBS, Venza quickly launched Great Performances, which is still running today.
Upon his retirement from PBS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting awarded Venza the Ralph Lowell medal. He held the record for the most Emmy nominations for an individual - 57 - until 2010.
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Filmography
all 59
Producer 56
Movies 54
TV Shows 5
Broadway: The American Musical (2004)
The Topdog Diaries (2002)
The Women (2002)
Fosse (2002)
Crazy For You (1999)
Andrea Bocelli - Sacred Arias (1999)
Two by Dove (1995)
The World of Jim Henson (1994)
Kiss, Kiss, Dahlings (1992)
The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez (1991)
Broadway's Dreamers: The Legacy of the Group Theatre (1989)
Tales from the Hollywood Hills: Natica Jackson (1987)
Alice in Wonderland (1983)
Fifth of July (1982)
Working (1982)
Carl Sandburg: Echoes and Silences (1982)
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf (1982)
The Shady Hill Kidnapping (1982)
Brideshead Revisited (1981)
Guests of the Nation (1981)
The Five Forty-Eight (1979)
O Youth and Beauty! (1979)
The Sorrows of Gin (1979)
Uncommon Women and Others (1979)
The Good Doctor (1978)
Tartuffe (1978)
The Trial of the Moke (1978)
Hard Times (1977)
The Patriots (1976)
All Over (1976)
The Adams Chronicles (1976)
Beyond the Horizon (1975)
The Year of the Dragon (1975)
Feasting with Panthers (1974)
In Fashion (1974)
Antigone (1974)
June Moon (1974)
Enemies (1974)
A Touch of the Poet (1974)
The Rimers of Eldritch (1972)
Home (1972)
Hogan's Goat (1971)
Paradise Lost (1971)
A Memory of Two Mondays (1971)
Dragon Country (1970)
Story Theatre (1969)
Let Me Hear You Whisper (1969)
An Enemy of the People (1966)
The Star Wagon (1966)
24 Hours in a Woman's Life (1961)
Waiting for Godot (1961)
Wonderful Town (1958)
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Information
Known ForProduction
GenderMale
Birthday1926-12-23
Deathday2024-05-28 (97 years old)
Birth PlaceChicago, United States
AwardsCapezio Dance Award, International Emmy Founders Award, Peabody Awards
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