People s 18
I don’t play golf, I don’t like bridge, and I don’t do lunch,” said veteran television and movie producer Danny Wilson. “What I do love, is to produce television and movie projects that speak to issues that are universal to the human condition.” His current production of Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu has received critical and popular acclaim. In fact, The Handmaid’s Tale won the 2018 Golden Globe Award for best dramatic series, the second year in a row for that honor and its star, Elisabeth Moss, was selected for giving the best actress performance for the series. There are more projects of equal quality in the pipeline. New York City may be his home for part of the week, but the river town of Lumberville Bucks County is where Danny’s heart is, where his spirit thrives.
“I like to think of myself as an observer,” Danny said, “but I follow Ernest Hemingway’s advice, that it is important to listen, and to listen carefully.” Those two traits and an uncompromising commitment to quality work are characteristics of his long and storied career in the television and movie industries. Think 18 Emmy Awards for excellence in Family Programming, Golden Globe Award for Stacy Keach’s performance in Hemingway”, George Foster Peabody Award for the series Blood and Honor, and these are only a few of the professional and critical accolades for Danny’s work.
The early seventies were an exciting time for television programming. Danny was particularly interested in children’s programming, and convinced ABC to support a series of after school specials that have become classics. “My wife was listening to a broadcast about a young girl in New Jersey who had won a spot on an all-male baseball team. There was great controversy about what she was trying to do, and I was immediately interested because it was a topic of great relevance.”
The resulting special was entitled Rookie of the Year starring an 11-year old Jodie Foster as Sharon Lee, the girl who was challenging the rules of an all boy baseball team. “The project resonated with the public, as Title IX, the law that forbids discrimination in sports based on sex and gender, was being signed by President Richard Nixon,” informed Danny.
The success of Rookie of the Year led to many other widely acclaimed after school specials while casting unknown actors such as Kristy McNichol, Jodie Foster, and Kim Richards who later found stardom. The specials focused on issues with which young people were dealing, but were topics that were not widely discussed but should have been. “I felt it was important to talk to, not at, young viewers, in a way that respected their point of views. After school specials tackled teen drug and alcohol abuse, divorce, bullying, teen pregnancy, physical and mental disabilities,” said Danny.
Ernest Hemingway was a writer who particularly intrigued Danny. Once he decided to develop a mini-series detailing Hemingway’s life and loves, Danny insisted that the series be filmed in the various locations where Hemingway once lived. “Our budget was over 20 million dollars, which was considered to be extreme for the time; we needed crews for each location, and then we had to factor in the cost of travel for cast and crew,” he said.
While the stakes were high, the authenticity of the various locations added a subtle dimension to the story line. The segment when Hemingway lived in the Swiss Alps is a case in point. “Environment was a very important part of his writing,” said Danny. “It gave him the inspiration that allowed him to write, but there was always an element of danger to being around Hemingway because he could lose his temper in an instant. In many ways he was a bully, yet he attracted both men and women to him. The Alps were a counterpoint to his personality and temperament—dangerous but highly attractive.”
The resulting mini-series captured Hemingway at his best—and worst. Stacy Keach, who bore an uncanny resemblance to the writer, won a Golden Globe as best actor in a series.
Danny’s reputation within the television and movie industries caught the attention of a German production company, who asked him to produce a documentary that traced the lives of three German youths and their families in the years preceding World War II. “I told the company that I was an American Jew from Chicago whose family were Holocaust survivors. I had never been to Germany, nor had I ever expressed the desire to go there. Also, I thought their concept for a documentary would never be successful in America, so for all those reasons I thought I was not the right person to head up this production.”
But those were precisely the reasons why the German firm was convinced that Danny was the right person for the job. “The management said they wanted the German stories to be told with honesty so that the world can understand what it was like during the years when Hitler was amassing his power,” Danny said, “and they agreed to my position that the project Blood and Honor should be told as a drama. Also, I wanted a version for the States with an English speaking cast and a German version with a German speaking cast.”
To accomplish this series as he wanted, Danny traveled throughout the German countryside in search of a cast of young actors who were bilingual and could convey the emotional range of the script in both languages. “We shot the scenes first in English, then in German, and the actors gave their all in terms of emotional intensity,” said Danny. “The series was quite a tour de force and a great commercial success.”
Working on Blood and Honor gave Danny a deeper and keener appreciation for the German people, and their lives during the rise of the Hitler regime. “What we managed to do was to create three German families who interlocked through their children and the Hitler Youth Movement. One was a Jewish family, the other, an upper class family who were Nazi Party leaders, and the third, a lower middle class family who struggled with poverty and unemployment,” Danny said. “The common thread among them was the power of coercion coming from the government and its policies, with its overall control on human dignity.”
Blood and Honor ends with the invasion of Poland and the beginning of World War II. “Its message of the corrosive effects of fear and coercion on society resonates with many people today throughout the world,” said Danny. “My production company is actively trying to get the mini-series rereleased because there is an audience that would want to hear its message.”
Another project currently in the pipeline is a dramatic series based on Jimmy Breslin’s book, How The Good Guys Finally Won: Notes from an Impeachment Summer published in 1975. “I have lived in New York for many years,” said Danny. “Reading Jimmy Breslin’s columns was a must read for anyone who enjoyed a witty but bright take on politics; in particular, he expressed how the common man was affected by decisions made by politicians who were far removed from their lives. Jimmy was their voice.”
In order to chronicle the progress of the Watergate investigation, Breslin went to live in Washington for a few months, shadowing then House Majority Leader Tip O’Neill from Massachusetts in all of his activities. “These two men shared a love of storytelling, good cigars, and a pint of beer or two,” said Danny. “They understood one another and most importantly, they both were concerned about the Watergate investigation and the serious consequences that lay ahead for the participants.”
Breslin saw Tip O’Neill as one of the good guys. “He was the first person in the Congress to bring up the word ‘impeachment’ and according to Breslin, O’Neill engineered the downfall of Richard Nixon by convincing Congressional members that something was seriously wrong,” said Danny. “Jimmy’s closeness to Tip reinforced the seriousness of the book, but Jimmy’s innate love of language and lively antidotes makes the project one that is worthy to bring to the screen today.”
As if there isn’t enough to keep this octogenarian busy, he is also taking another look at a series he produced in 1981, Sophisticated Gents. The mini-series was based on a book entitled The Junior Bachelor Society by John A. Williams. Although the main participants in Sophisticated Gents are African-Americans, Danny says the story is really about nine men who happen to be black, who reunite after 30 years apart in a reunion to honor their high school coach. Their lives have taken many different paths since they were in high school, and the reunion sparks a dramatic examination of who they are and what they have become.
“I think it is time to take a contemporary look at these nine men, who are now 20 years older. It is entitled Sophisticated Gents: The Next Generation,” said Danny. “It is fascinating to contemplate how they are coping with the many changes in America since the original series aired. Unfortunately, some of the actors who filmed in the series are no longer with us, including Rosy Grier and Paul Winfield, but I know we can again cast a great group of actors to give us another look at their contemporary life.”
When Danny is talking about people with whom he has worked, or with whom he is acquainted, one has to listen carefully to identify the right person. The name Bobby could be Robert Duvall, the legendary actor who starred in Danny’s 1990 film production of The Handmaid’s Tale or Senator Robert Kennedy, who was a personal friend.
“Bobby was a very warm human being,” Danny said. “At one time our company had brought several Russian teenagers to the states. We asked for a list of what they would want to do or see. Number one on the list was to talk to Robert Kennedy and number two was to go to Disneyland.”
Danny’s office arranged for a meeting between Senator Kennedy and the teenagers. “Bobby talked with the youngsters for three hours, with no topic off limits. At the end of the session, he invited the teens to join him and his family on a water rafting trip, and of course, everyone jumped at the opportunity. He was an incredibly gracious man,” Danny said.
These are many projects that are taking Danny to points all over the world, but it is the beauty of Bucks County and the Delaware River that resonates with him. “My wife Linda and I like to take a daily walk along the towpath, absorbing the serenity of the surroundings, the many moods of the river,” Danny said.
“I have an emotional and intellectual connection with Nature, that seems to encourage my own creativity. Nothing gives me a greater pleasure than doing a meaningful project. The success of the television production of The Handmaid’s Tale shows that the country is ready for its message, whereas when we did the 1990 film production, we met only moderate success. Timing is everything.”
Margo Ragan is a freelance writer and lecturer at Holy Family College who lives in New Hope, PA.