Jac Venza
- Known for
- Production
- Born
- December 23, 1926
- Died
- May 28, 2024 (aged 97)
- Birthplace
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
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. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Known For
Photos
Filmography
Broadway: The American Musical
TV · Executive Producer · 6 eps
Fosse
Movie · Executive Producer
The Women
Movie · Executive Producer
The Topdog Diaries
Movie · Executive Producer
Crazy for You
Movie · Executive Producer
Andrea Bocelli - Sacred Arias
Movie · Executive Producer
Jackie: Behind the Myth
Movie · Executive Producer
American Visions
TV · Executive Producer · 8 eps
Two by Dove
Movie · Executive Producer
The World of Jim Henson
Movie · Executive Producer
Kiss, Kiss, Dahlings
Movie · Executive Producer
The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez
Movie · Co-Producer
Julie Andrews in Concert
Movie · Executive Producer
Broadway's Dreamers: The Legacy of the Group Theatre
Movie · Executive Producer
Show Boat
Movie · Executive Producer
Bacall on Bogart
Movie · Executive Producer
Tales from the Hollywood Hills: Natica Jackson
Movie · Executive Producer
James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
Movie · Executive Producer
Judy Garland: The Concert Years
Movie · Executive Producer
Alice in Wonderland
Movie · Executive Producer
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf
Movie · Associate Producer
Carl Sandburg: Echoes and Silences
Movie · Executive Producer
Working
Movie · Executive Producer
Fifth of July
Movie · Executive Producer
The Shady Hill Kidnapping
Movie · Executive Producer
Guests of the Nation
Movie · Executive Producer
Brideshead Revisited
TV · Executive Producer · 11 eps
Uncommon Women and Others
Movie · Executive Producer
O Youth and Beauty!
Movie · Executive Producer
The Five Forty-Eight
Movie · Executive Producer
The Sorrows of Gin
Movie · Executive Producer
The Good Doctor
Movie · Producer
The Trial of the Moke
Movie · Executive Producer
Tartuffe
Movie · Executive Producer
Mourning Becomes Electra
TV · Producer · 5 eps
Hard Times
TV · Producer · 4 eps
The Patriots
Movie · Executive Producer
The Adams Chronicles
TV · Executive Producer · 13 eps
Beyond the Horizon
Movie · Executive Producer
The Year of the Dragon
Movie · Executive Producer
The School for Scandal
Movie · Producer
Enemies
Movie · Executive Producer
A Touch of the Poet
Movie · Executive Producer
Feasting with Panthers
Movie · Executive Producer
In Fashion
Movie · Executive Producer
June Moon
Movie · Executive Producer
The Rimers of Eldritch
Movie · Executive Producer
Home
Movie · Producer
The Great Radio Comedians
Movie · Producer
Hogan's Goat
Movie · Executive Producer
Paradise Lost
Movie · Executive Producer
A Memory of Two Mondays
Movie · Executive Producer
Dragon Country
Movie · Executive Producer
Let Me Hear You Whisper
Movie · Executive Producer
Story Theatre
Movie · Executive Producer
The Journey of the Fifth Horse
Movie · Producer
An Enemy of the People
Movie · Executive Producer
The Star Wagon
Movie · Producer
Ten Blocks on the Camino Real
Movie · Executive Producer